God’s wisdom is fathomless, His decisions are unsearchable, His methods are mysterious and untraceable. No one has ever even understood His mind, let alone advised Him on the proper course of action. How futile and even arrogant for us to seek to determine what God is doing in a particular event or circumstance. We simply cannot search out the reasons behind His decisions or trace out the ways by which He brings those decisions to pass.
Jerry Bridges

The Chinese Translation Of John

The Chinese Translation Of John

The Chinese Translation Of John 1:1

(Title supplied by sysop)

Many believe that since John 1:1 is translated “And the Word was God”, that make Jesus God. I am going to post an excerpt from a periodical called _The Bible Translator_ of October 1954. This is from an article entitled “On Lu Chen-Chung’s New Testament Translation” by Robert Kramers. In this article he reviews a translation of the Bible from Greek into Chinese by Rev. Lu Chen-Chung. He says:

“The present articel intends to present some results of a discussion which took place in Hong Kong during part of 1953 and the beginning

“1. The only serious textual problem we encountered tends to show a basic difference between group translation and translation by one man:

John 1:18, monogenes theos. (onlybegotten god) There is strong textual evidence for this reading but on grounds of internal evidence many translations read huios (son) instead of theos (god). So does the Mandarin Bible, Union Version (the Bible used by the Protestant Chinese), doubtless following the authority of the Revised Version:`The only begotten Son’. Lu’s translation, however chooses to follow Nestle’s text which has the reading monogenes theos (onlybegotten god), and so he has: shen, i-ko t’e-sheng-che, `god, an only begotten one’, The possible emendations are placed by him in a foot-note. Lu agreed that in an official revision it might be better to revert to huios (son) in the text, placing the alternatives in a footnote, if the revision committee so insists.”

“No doubt he Mandarin Bible, Union Version translators felt bound in many instances to follow the English translation, especially the Revisied Version, sine English up to recent times was practically the only foreign language widely used in China.”

Note what is being said here concerning John 1:18. He says that there is strong textual evidence for the rendering of `onlybegotten god’. Note that the Chinese translation of it follows Nestles text and renders it `god, an only begotten one’. Thus showing that Jesus is called a god, an only begotten god.

Second example:

“One novel translation by Mr. Lu may well rake up the century-old question how to render the word `God’ in Chinese. As is well known, there are two trends in the Protestant churches, one using throughout the generic term “shen”, `god’,`spirit’, and the other using the old designation “Shangti”, `Lord-on-High’, for `God’, retaining the term “shen” for `god’, `gods’,`divine’.” “John 1:1, ho logos en pros ton theos, kai theos en ho logos. Usually the second theos is also translated `God’, but there is also an interpretation taking this word to rather mean `divine’ here. Lu always renders `God’ by Shangti, but here he translates the second theos by “shen”, `god’. He thus seems to have the advantage of holding a middle position between `God’ and `divine’, but on the other hand this translation may give rise to undesirable speculations about the Trinity, suggesting subordination within it. The difficulty, according to LU, lies in the fact that Shangti seems too narrow a term here, although in the formula `God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit’ the term Shangti is used throughout.”

Note what is being said here. The Chinese have two words for God in the Protestant churches. God is rendered as “Shangti” and god is rendered as “shen”. This translator renders the clause not as “and the Word was God”, but “and the Word was god”. He said that the the term “Shangti” or God is too narrow a term to be used there. the word “shen” or god is holding an advantage by holding the middle ground between God and divine. This reviewer who wrote the article and a representative of the Hong Kong Bible House who assisted in the interview of the translator did not object to this translation and say that is was unscholarly. But note that he said that it may give undesirable speculations about the trinity. Thus a translation of “and the Word was god” is scholarly but is not accepted because is could lead to speculaton against the trinity. That is a religious bias there.

Composed by Steve Klemetti