Geyi: A Cultural Hermeneutic Strategy In Bible Translation Into Chinese

The Bible is taken as the greatest influential book with the most translation versionsin history. Since Christianity came into China, the Bible translation into Chinese has beenthrough over1,300years, undergoing four periods such as the Tang dynasty, the Yuandynasty, the Late Ming and Early Qing period and the Late Qing period. The Bibletranslators in different historical periods employed various ways to search the optimalstrategy in Bible translation into Chinese and tried to make the Bible adapt into Chineselocal culture.The strategy of geyi was firstly applied in the translation of the Buddhist scripturesand it is an inculturalized strategy of adopting Chinese traditional concepts to analogizeand interpret Buddhist doctrines. As the Bible was spread into China, the missionaries toChina followed that example and adopted the terms from Chinese culture, namely,Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism to analogize and interpret the biblical doctrines.The strategy of geyi becomes an indispensable means in Bible translation history in China.According to Hans-Georg Gadamer, the differences in translation brought by history areinevitable, for different readers even in the same period pose different understandingstoward the same text and the differences always come from the historicality of the authorand different readers. So is the cultural hermeneutic strategy in the Bible translation intoChinese. Since the degrees brought by the strategy of geyi are various, the Bibletranslation versions become unstable and its unstableness leads to Chinese reader’shistoricality of understanding towards the Bible. By means of the analysis of theculture-loaded terms in John extracted from Chinese Union Version published in1919and Today’ Chinese Version published in1978with the help of documentary analysis andcomparative studies, the strategy of geyi is discussed in detail, aiming to explore the effect of hermeneutic strategy in the biblical culture.This thesis mainly consists of five chapters. Chapter one is an introduction of thepresent research from the aspects of the background, purposes, methodology andsignificance. Chapter two is the literature review, presenting different strategies in Bibletranslation history in China, summarizing the historical evolution of geyi and pointing outthe limitations of previous study. Chapter three is an introduction of hermeneutics anddiscusses the similarities between geyi and Gadamer’s historicality of understanding.Chapter four is a case study presenting the actual application of geyi in culture-loadedterms in John from Chinese Union Version and Today’s Chinese Version and analyzes theeffect of the strategy of geyi. Chapter five is a conclusion of the thesis.