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The Bible Translation of Ancient Chinese Christianity, Luminous Religion

YI SOO YEON 1

1충남대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

The Bible has been constantly translated in the long history of mankind. Translation theories accumulated through the Bible translation have contributed to the development of translation studies as an independent branch of learning. This paper considers the Bible translation in the Tang Dynasty. The Bible translation was begun in 635 by a Syrian Alopen who came to China by the invitation of the emperor Taizong. 1,380 years before the Christianity was introduced to China by the West, the Bible began to be translated by the Eastern Christians. Christianity in ancient Chinese is called Nestorianism sometimes, but Luminous Religion is more correct expression. To introduce an unfamiliar religion to China, Christianity, foreign evangelists were involved in the translation. There’s a record that of the 530 Bibles brought to China, 30 Bibles were translated. To introduce the unfamiliar Christianity, Ge-yi translation method was used in Chinese society where Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism prospered. Some words translated by the method have become core vocabularies of Christianity nowadays. Many words were newly created.

Citation status

* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.