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A Comparative Study of Chinese and Korean Bible Translations of the Decalogue(Exo. 20:1-17)

LI XIAOLIN 1

1목원대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This study will focus on the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments played an important role in the translation process of the Chinese Bible and Korean Bible. When there was not active in the mission using texts, the Ten Commandments were loved by many Christians as the favorite text expressing their rule of Christian life. I will compare the Ten Commandments in various Chinese Bible versions and Korean Bible versions to see how the interpretation was made. Their interpretation was dynamic by time periods, characters, or translation rules. The original meaning of the Ten Commandments was also differently applied in East Asian culture. I will study the different understanding of the words in various versions. Moreover, my focus will be on the differences between the Chinese Bible and the Korean Bible. As a Chinese scholar, it is meaningful to study the comparison of the versions in the different intentions. The question of how the Korean Bible accepted the Chinese Bible is also important for the Korean scholars. The first through fourth commandments show many variations among the Bible versions; there are not specific differences in the fifth through tenth commandments in relation to human life. The first part overall has longer sentences than the others, and the difficult theological concepts and interpretations typically made for different interpretations. There is a saying that the work of the translation of the Bible is adventure and treason. The language differences exist in all the translation tasks and no one can stop changes. The changes and editorial works are so important as these tasks provide continuous extensions of the Bible. There will be no exact word in the translation process. Translators just seek to find a most preferable word. This process was the same in the translation from Hebrew to Greek. There would be additions and subtractions, even alterations. The coherences and discords in this process may be natural. Rather, the translators should consider which words were most comparable to their society. Whenever the Bible is translated into other versions, there will be an effort to find the possibility from the impossibility.

Citation status

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