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Bible translations into Chinese include translations of the whole or parts of the Bible into any of the levels and varieties of the Chinese language. Publication of early or partial translations began in the nineteenth century, but progress was encumbered by denominational rivalries, theological clashes, linguistic disputes, and practical challenges at least until the publication of the Protestant Chinese Union Version in 1919, which became the basis of standard versions in use today. Although the motive for making translations was to spread the Gospel, there were further consequences. Access to the Bible in their own language made it easier for Chinese to develop forms of Christianity not dependent on missionaries and foreign churches. Translations designed to be read aloud were significant not only for Christian believers, but for Chinese who wanted models for writing in the vernacular. Since regional languages or dialects could not be adequately written using Chinese characters, phonetic systems and type faces had to be invented; Christian texts were often the first works to be printed in those languages. The task of translation motivated missionaries to study Chinese closely, contributing to the development of Sinology. The Bible, especially the Old Testament, also offered Chinese revolutionaries such as the leaders of the nineteenth-century Taiping Rebellion an apocalyptic vision of social justice on which to base their claims. ==Catholic translations== The Bible did not play a primary role in Church preaching in sixteenth-century Europe or in the first Jesuit China missions; translation of the Bible was not a major concern. The Jesuit missionaries in Beijing were granted permission in 1615 to conduct mass in the vernacular and to translate sacred texts, though not into the vernacular but into “erudite language proper to the ''literati''.” Jesuit superiors in Beijing, however, determined that it would be more useful to translate other works than the Bible, though they made translations of the Ten Commandments, the Sermon on the Mount, a catechism based on the Bible, and a life of Christ. Chinese could therefore have a reasonable knowledge of Biblical matters even though there was no published translation of the book itself. The first translations were not until the eighteenth century and were made by individual priests on their own initiative. Neither of the two known translations was complete and neither was published. The British Museum acquired a manuscript copy of the first translation, which Robert Morrison had copied and used as a reference for his own work. 〔''Handbook of Christianity in China'' Volume One:635-1800. Edited by Nicolas Standaert. Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2001. pp. 620-624.〕 The first Catholic Chinese Bible to be published was started by a young Franciscan friar named Gabriele Allegra, who began translating the Old Testament from the original Hebrew and Aramaic languages in 1935. Ten years later he recruited Friars Solanus Lee, Antonius Lee, Bernardinus Lee, and Ludovicus Liu in Beijing. However, due to the Chinese civil war in 1948, the friars were forced to move the Studium Biblicum to Hong Kong. After twenty years of effort, the first Old Testament was published in 1954. In 1968 the New and Old Testaments were published in a single volume. John C. H. Wu, a Catholic convert, who served as the Republic of China's minister to the Vatican, also made a translation of the New Testament and the Psalms into Classical Chinese in 1946. The translations were not direct and often noted to be florid, and his translation of the Psalms were paraphrases. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Bible translations into Chinese」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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