The Jew, the Bible, and China
By Rev Dr Jeffrey Khoo
Samuel Isaac Joseph Schereschewsky was born in 1831 in Taurage, a village in Lithuania. He was born to Jewish parents who died when he was still very young. He was then brought up by his half-brother (from his father’s first wife). Schereschewsky described his upbringing as “stern and sad.”
Schereschewsky was of the scholarly mould. He had a thirst for knowledge. When he reached 16 years old, he enrolled in the Zhitomir Rabbinic School. Zhitomir was one of the best rabbinic schools in those days and situated in a most scenic area of Ukraine. In Zhitomir, the Bible was taught in German using Mendelshohn’s translation. Studying from a translated Bible impressed upon young Schereschewsky the importance of producing an accurate yet understandable translation of the Holy Scriptures from the original languages. Schereschewsky not only studied the Bible in German, he also studied the Hebrew language and excelled in both areas. In the library of Zhitomir was a copy of the Hebrew Bible (Old and New Testaments) published and distributed by the London Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews. Schereschewsky was converted to Christianity through this Bible in 1852.
After completing his education at Zhitomir, Schereschewsky travelled to Breslau, Germany. There he met Dr Henricus Christophilus Neumann. Neumann was a lecturer in Hebrew and rabbinic languages at the University of Breslau. He was a Christian and an evangelist of the London Society. Surely God’s providential hand was guiding the life of the young Schereschewsky. He met the right person, at the right place, and at the right time. Neumann shaped Schereschewsky’s spiritual and intellectual life. Neumann taught the Hebrew language by using the Hebrew Bible. He did not employ the rationalistic and destructive criticism of the Bible that was found in other universities like Tubingen. God had placed Schereschewsky in a safe haven for his theological training. Neumann taught Schereschewsky the fundamentals of the
Christian Faith, and encouraged him to be a missionary for Jesus Christ.
In the 1850s, Karl Gutzlaff was promoting China as a mission field. Gutzlaff was a fiery preacher, and he urged his listeners to establish an organisation to support missions in China. Neumann himself wrote a couple of articles promoting missions in China and the need to translate the Bible into Chinese. Schereschewsky’s time in Breslau had brought him into direct contact with the doctrines and missionary zeal of evangelical Christianity. This no doubt played an important role in his future decision to become a missionary to China and his translation of the Bible into Chinese.
From Breslau, Schereschewsky migrated to America in 1854. He landed in New York and got in touch with the American Society, a Presbyterian missionary society. While most migrants to America sought work, Schereschewsky sought schooling. With the Christian influence he had in Breslau, he desired more theological studies in a seminary. Through the help of the American Society, he gained admittance into Western Theological Seminary (now Pittsburgh Theological Seminary). Western Seminary was known for its missionary ethos. Many of its graduates ended up as missionaries to distant countries like India, Africa, and Singapore. Schereschewsky studied at Western for a couple of years before transferring to General Theological Seminary (Episcopal). There he excelled in his Hebrew and Greek studies which were most necessary for his future work as a Bible translator.
After three and a half years of theological training in America, Schereschewsky set his sights on becoming a missionary to China. In 1859, he took a ship to China. In the five months at sea, he wasted no time to learn the Chinese language. When he arrived in Shanghai, his first thoughts were to get on with his learning of the Chinese language. Schereschewsky felt no point preaching to the Chinese if he was unable to communicate with them intelligibly. He spared no effort to learn not only the local Shanghainese dialect and Mandarin which was spoken by the intelligentsia, but also literary and classical Chinese. His relentless pursuit to learn the Chinese language at every level was with the intention of understanding the Chinese mind and spirit.
China needs the Bible. No Bible, no Christianity! As Schereschewsky’s biographer—Irene Eber—rightly observes, “The task of translating was considered, ‘a cardinal principle of Protestant Christianity, one of its chief reasons for its existence at all.’ Translation of the Bible into Chinese was equivalent to Luther’s German translation and the King James’s English translation. To teach Christianity without a Bible … was like an artisan trying to work without tools.” Schereschewsky no doubt understood the need for an accurately translated Chinese Bible if Christianity was to have any future in China. In 1864, the Peking Translation Committee was formed, and Schereschewsky was among the four translators; the others being Henry Blodget, John Burdon, and Joseph Edkins. Being a Jew and a Hebrew scholar, Schereschewsky was given the task of translating the whole Old Testament single-handedly. At that time, there was no better person to translate the Hebrew Old Testament into Chinese than he. The New Testament was published in 1872, and the Old Testament in 1874.
The Chinese Bible translated by the Peking Committee was highly commended for its faithfulness to the original text, and idiomatic Mandarin. It was translated from the traditional and preserved Hebrew Masoretic Text and Greek Textus Receptus. True to the divinely preserved texts, Schereschewsky did not think there was any scribal error in 2 Chronicles 22:2 (cf 2 Kgs 8:26), and faithfully translated the age of Ahaziah as 42 years old in keeping to the Masoretic Text. In the New Testament, the precious Trinitarian verse of 1 John 5:7 was kept intact and translated according to the Textus Receptus.
In recognition of his accomplishments in China, the American Episcopal Church made Schereschewsky the Missionary Bishop of Shanghai in 1877. At first he declined to accept the appointment due to his many perceived inadequacies. The House of Bishops however considered him to be the best candidate for the position, and insisted that he should take it up. He finally accepted the bishopric with “many grave misgivings,” and prayed God “Who is the strength of the weak and the Guide of the perplexed be my Strength and my Guide in this very solemn matter.” He felt that Divine Providence was leading him to establish a Christian College in China, and the bishopric conferred upon him would aid in this new endeavour. Besides his appointment as Bishop, he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Divinity by Kenyon College, and the Doctor of Sacred Theology by Columbia University.
When Schereschewsky returned to Shanghai, he bought 13 acres of land at the countryside to build St John’s College as it was named. St John’s College was formally opened in September 1879 with 10 lecturers and 62 students. St John’s College became one of the finest colleges in China, and is now St John’s University in Tamsui, Taiwan. In 1881, Schereschewsky was struck with paralysis after coming down with high fever. He almost died from the fever and was in a coma for several days. When he regained consciousness, he found himself unable to move and to speak. As the days went by, he did improve a little, but it became quite obvious that he would be physically handicapped for life.
In 1883, Schereschewsky resigned as Bishop and embarked on a revision of his Chinese translation of the Old Testament which was his first love. He felt that his 1875 translation of the Old Testament could be improved upon. His revision did not depart from the literal accuracy of the text, but sought to smoothen the grammar and update the expressions to make the translation more readable.
Although severely handicapped, Schereschewsky was not a quitter. Dr Irene Eber recounts how Schereschewsky with “superhuman patience” went about his revision work: “… he acquired a typewriter called ‘Caligraph’ and began to revise the OT text in transliteration, using the middle finger of his right hand or alternately holding a stick in his fist [tapping out one letter after another]. Seven long years passed while he typed the revised OT and began a new translation of the entire Bible into literary Chinese. … By the end of 1894, some six years after he had completed his OT revisions, he had produced … a new NT translation in literary Chinese.” In his revision, Schereschewsky was assisted by Lian Yinghuang, a Chinese scholar and graduate of the Christian Dengzhou College. Schereschewsky’s revised Old Testament in literary Chinese was finally published by the American Bible Society in 1899, and formed the basis of the Chinese Union Version of 1919.
Having accomplished what God had called him to do, Schereschewsky was called home to be with the Lord in 1906. Dr Eber concluded her biography of Schereschewsky by saying that the Jewish Bishop of Shanghai had no equal as translator of the Hebrew Scriptures, not then, not now.
I am grateful to brother Cheow Teong Kean of True Life Bible-Presbyterian Church for bringing to my attention Irene Eber’s biography of Schereschewsky titled, The Jewish Bishop and the Chinese Bible: S I J Schereschewsky, 1831-1906 (Leiden: Brill, 1999), and for donating to the library of the Far Eastern Bible College Schereschewsky’s Bible (St John’s University, 2005 reprint) and the Wenli Delegates’ Bible (Bible Society in Taiwan, 2006 reprint). These two Chinese versions were translated from the traditional, majority, and received texts. May God’s people come to a holy awareness of the Biblical doctrine of the Verbal and Plenary Preservation (VPP) of the Holy Scriptures, and may the Preserved Text underlying the King James Bible see a revival in the Chinese Church today. May the Lord continue to fulfil His promise to the Chinese, “Behold, these shall come from far: and, lo, these from the north and from the west; and these from the land of Sinim (ie, China)” (Isa 49:12, KJV). To God be the glory, great things He has done!
Have a blessed Chinese New Year!
