the Bible in Chinese

[winterpromise31]

Hello!

 

I searched the forums but couldn't find an answer to my question. I'd like to use the Bible as one of my study tools. Are there various versions/translations in Chinese like there are in English? (KJV, NASB, the Message, etc). I don't want to learn from a really old translation that would have me speaking in the Chinese equivalent of "thee" and "thou."  If possible, I'd love to find something in traditional Hanzi, as I'm focusing on traditional instead of simplified. I found this one (http://www.wordproject.org/bibles/big5/index.htm) but just realized the audio is Cantonese.

 

Thanks!
Cassandra

[CJGait]

From my limited study of the Bible in Chinese there are indeed older and newer versions, and you are probably better off with the newer ones. The early translations used a language that was alien to both China and the West, a kind of pidgin Chinese dreamed up by missionaries and their Chinese assistants. Naturally the Bible is  a great challenge to translate both because of the significant amount of personal and place names as well as the basic approach of the texts of the Bible to life as viewed from the east. Concepts that seem natural to westerners are less stressed or sometimes completely absent from the Chinese mindset.

[刘慧婷]

Unfortunately the Chinese bible doesn't have as many versions to choose from as it's English counterpart. From my limited knowledge, the traditional Chinese bible that many Chinese churches still use is called the Chinese Union Bible and the more modern one is called the Chinese Contemporary Bible. I think if you've been brought up in a Chinese church to read and listen from the CUV you won't struggle to get through it much but for most people you want to refer to the one with more modern word usages. Even then though, it's hard for anyone to adapt to the language of the bible as you'll find words in it that aren't used that often in daily life. I was doing a bible study with another Australian friend and an international student from China yesterday and even she stumbled across some words and didn't know their meaning but your best bet is still the CCB. Here's a link to a free online version but I'm not sure if you can change the settings to traditional Chinese. https://www.bible.com/en-GB/bible/36/jhn.1.ccb

[oceancalligraphy]

Here's a version of the New Testament with Mandarin pronunciation, and can be switched between traditional and simplified.

 

http://www.bibleinchinese.com/BibleReader

 

This version has the Old and New Testament, and both traditional Chinese and English together. The book names are listed in Chinese, hovering the mouse over the links gives the English names.

 

http://www.o-bible.com/b5/int.html

[tiantian]

On 

 

https://www.biblegateway.com/ 

 

there are several translations of the Bible in Chinese: The popular Union Version (which uses a bit outdated Chinese and is difficult to read), the Chinese Standard Bible, the Chinese New Version, the Chinese Contemporary Bilbe and even a Easy-to-Read version of the New Testament - great for studying!

 

Just pick your favourite quote from the Bible and see how it is translated in the different versions and choose the one that you like best.

[winterpromise31]

Wonderful! All of these responses help a ton. Thank you so much!!!

[Matty]

I was very disappointed by my Chinese friends bible, I wanted to point out some of the evil and gorish bits, unfortunately the meaning was changed in translation to make it seem less evil.

[James3]

Matty do you happen to remember what version that was?

[skylee]

Take a look -> http://rcuv.hkbs.org.hk/ You can listen to it in Mandarin.

和合本 is the version I am familiar with.

PS - I don't read the Bible a lot. But I was "brought up" reading it so sort of know about it. I don't know much about the versions. When I have to decide which version to read, I usually decide by reading John 1:1. The version I need is "太初有道，道與神同在，道就是神。"