To giganter i moderne kinesisk bibeloversettelse : resultat av et vellykket samarbeid i to kirkefamilier - protestantisk og katolsk

Abstract

The present article shows some of the major factors that led to the success of two bible translations in modern Han Chinese and their continuous influence in the Chinese Protestant Church and the Chinese Catholic Church. The Protestant version is the Chinese Union Version (CUV) from 1919, and its successor, the Revised Chinese Union Version (RCUV) from 2010. Whereas Western missionaries dominated work on the CUV, the revision committee which prepared the RCUV consisted only of native Chinese, from the outside and inside of the People’s Republic of China. One of the reasons why the Studium Biblicum Sinense version of the Bible (SB) could retain its popularity until today is that it was the first entire Chinese Catholic version of the Bible, when it was first published in 1968, and the result of 23 years’ work. Although it was an overseas missionary, Father Gabriel Maria Allegra who led the entire translation process, the rest of his team were Chinese and could ascertain proper diction in the version. SB soon replaced other Chinese Catholic versions of the New Testament and is still the only catholic Chinese version of the entire Old Testament. Revisions on the SB have begun. This means both a modernization of the Chinese text, and an adaptation of the readings of the originals to contemporary critical editions of the biblical texts. The Catholic churches both within and outside the People’s Republic now read the biblical text in their liturgies from the SB version. The SB has become the Catholic Chinese version par excellence both within the People’s Republic and outside, and unites Chinese Catholics worldwide.