The Annotation Question of the Chinese Protestant Bible, 1877-1917

The proposed research will explore the ‘annotation question’ of the Chinese Protestant Bible (i.e. whether the Chinese Protestant Bible needed to be published with annotations explaining the biblical world to Chinese readers) provoked by the ‘without note or comment’ principle of Bible societies in late Qing and early Republican China. The proposed research will offer an opportunity to understand that the China experience of the Protestant mission not only involved the Christian Bible’s eastward cross-cultural journey but also challenged the traditional Western understanding of Christian beliefs.

The first part of the proposed research is a study focusing on the controversy over the ‘annotation question’ between Protestant missionaries in China and Bible societies during the 1870s and the 1910s. By critically examining archival sources and relevant published materials, the study will probe into the challenge posed by the missionary experience in China to the traditional Western understanding of Christian beliefs and the doctrinal issues central to the debate over the necessity of annotations for the Chinese Protestant Bible. The study will then elucidate the views of Protestant missionaries and Bible societies on the value, necessity and scope of annotations for the Chinese Protestant Bible and the kinds of ideological positions taken by the two parties to support their views. In addition, the study will look at the power relationship between the two parties in the mission context and how much this weighed in Bible societies’ decisions to consider deviating from their long-established ‘without note or comment’ principle for the sake of the China mission field.

The second part consists of textual analyses of the draft annotations compiled by Protestant missionaries in China and the annotations eventually printed in Chinese Bibles by Bible societies. Particular attention will be given to the annotators’ strategies to explain the biblical world to Chinese readers with reference to their socio-cultural context. The annotation practices adopted by Protestant missionaries and native Chinese writers will also be compared to cast light on whether and how missionary Bible annotators followed local textual practices to facilitate the Chinese reception of Christianity.

Through an archive-based, well-researched study of an overlooked aspect of the Chinese Protestant Bible in late Qing and early Republican China, the proposed research will not only further our historical knowledge of Chinese Bible translation and publishing but also enhance our understanding of the complexity of the historical process by which Christianity was spread in the non-Christian world.