– Marco Carvalho
It is considered the Chinese version of the Bible par excellence, but the translation of the Holy Scriptures made by the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum would benefit from a fresh approach to the Chinese reality. The text, published in Hong Kong fifty years ago, is mainly a good study instrument for all of those that want to deepen their knowledge of the word of God, but its role as an efficient mechanism towards evangelization needs bolstering. Father Cyril Law – who maintains that the Church should make an effort to translate the Bible into the different dialects of the Chinese language – explains why.
Why is the Studium Biblicum translation of the Bible so important for Chinese language Catholics?
I would say, first off, that this translation has provided us for the first time a widely adopted basis for the liturgy. We finally have a universally adopted Catholic translation for the Mass and other Sacramental liturgies where there’s no need to be confused about the terminology, especially names of biblical topography and personages. However, in practice, there is some great diversity in the adoption of this text. Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao, and China’s Missals make various uses of this Bible because they have to have in mind the regional differences in pronunciation from dialect to dialect. Taiwan has its own unique set of renditions of the names of the saints. The Psalms used in the breviary are also different from the Studium Biblicum edition. The Studium Biblicum Psalms, which was the first book to be published in the series (1964), was translated, as related to me by an elderly Franciscan father, with the contribution of local Chinese priests originating from the provinces of Shantung and Hunan. The Psalms don’t entirely rhyme if you read them in contemporary Mandarin. The language has changed over the past fifty years. Some tonality and turns of phrase are already considered archaic.
Does this mean that we need a revised version of the Studium Biblicum translation? Or we are, instead, in need of a completely new translation?
I think that for real evangelization we need dialect Bibles. We don’t have a Catholic Cantonese Bible, for instance. What is happening now in our liturgy is … Well, we are not really having a Cantonese Mass at all. We are having a Mass where a Mandarin text, written in Mandarin grammar, is pronounced in Cantonese. It’s an alien language. No one talks like that. It’s like having a piece of Latin but you pronounce it in Portuguese, with Portuguese pronunciation being read it as if it was French. There is a certain degree of artificiality here. For example, my mother doesn’t read or write Chinese as she only learned Cantonese as a spoken tongue. When we attend the so-called Cantonese Mass, the homily given in spoken Cantonese would become just about the only intelligible part relative to someone who does not know written Chinese. The important thing of the Studium Biblicum Chinese translation of the Bible is that it is an authentic basis. This version is the “Vulgata” for the Chinese tongue in general, just like the “Vulgata” was the reference for renditions in Italian and French and all the other Romance languages. We need Chinese dialect versions of the Bible: we need Cantonese, Fukienese, Hakka Bibles, etc. based on this.
Is this work being done? Is this labor of trying to get the word of God as close as possible to the People of God in their own language being conducted?
In my opinion ? No. In my case, I haven’t taken to heart any of the readings I heard at Mass, because it’s a Mandarin text pronounced in Cantonese. I hardly ever retain any of the phrases that are being read because that is not how we talk. I only retain the Scripture as it is being interpreted during the homily or in Sunday school. This version of the Bible has provided uniformity and orthodoxy of the readings in Scripture and catechetical writings: here you have an authentic, orthodox text for a written purpose, for academic purpose. But, for evangelization and for real enculturation in the liturgy, it works in Mandarin speaking places, where Mandarin is the mother tongue of the person. Nevertheless, most Chinese actually have their own dialect as their mother tongue. We have this situation where there is really a separation, there is a gap between the literal written text and the spoken tongue. I have checked this with several Scriptures Scholars and they told me that even in the koiné Greek – the New Testament koiné Greek – there is still a difference between the written form and the spoken form, despite the fact that the Apostles and the Fathers of the Church made an effort to bridge the gap between the literal and the spoken. This process is always going to be there. You are never going to have a perfect translation in terms of colloquial relevancy. I have with me the Protestant Cantonese Bible. It was done clearly by people who were speaking Cantonese perhaps in other parts of Canton province, not in Hong Kong or Macau. Therefore, the ways of expressing certain terms in Cantonese are different. This Cantonese Protestant Bible dates from 2006. Yet I already find it distant from me because Cantonese changes as a dialect, it adopts new terms and phrases and it keeps on evolving. Maybe that is the reason why no one wants to invest in it. Once it is done it is already outdated.
Nevertheless, this Studium Biblicum translation is an important theoretical instrument. This importance might explain the reason why it was adopted by the Official Church, in Mainland China? Before the Studium Biblicum …
Shanghai Diocese has its own translation. Bishop Jin has created its own edition of the Bible [based on the Jerusalem Bible]. So, basically, there are not just one Catholic editions around. But, as I said, for the last 15 to 20 years, Mainland China has been using the Missal produced in Taiwan and the Taiwan Missal’s readings are not exactly the Studium Biblicum readings. What you hear at Mass is not exactly what you would read in front of you with this Bible.
It is, still, a reference for the Chinese who identify themselves as Catholic followers?
Indeed. I would say so. Let us not forget that each of the different books that were published came along with annotations. That is a very important aspect, because it immediately brought the fruits of Biblical exegesis, together with the text, into the Chinese language. It provided Chinese Catholics for the first time with a systematic Biblical exegesis conveniently alongside the text. Any the lay faithful may now read the Scriptures with reliable annotations. The Franciscan fathers were very faithful in safeguarding orthodoxy. What they use in the annotations are in line with traditional Catholic points of view, as well as certain decisions of the Pontifical Biblical Commission as well as in accord with the consensus of the Church Fathers. The presentation of the sources from which they relied on in providing those annotations together with the text are, I think, far more important than the achievement of having the translated text alone. It destroyed the myth that we Catholics cannot read and interpret the Bible. It reinforced the Catholic identity in a very healthy way.
Was this the biggest contribution that the Studium Biblicum brought? Before this translation, was there any other document of this kind?
Yes. I found one of the earliest systematic examples. In fact, I documented this effort in my doctoral thesis. Ma Xiang Bo was a former Jesuit. He was ordained but decided to leave the priesthood in the late 1870s. He single-handedly translated the Four Gospels into literary Chinese with extensive commentary. There’s an interesting aspect. He only used words and characters that were in use in the time of the events reported in the Gospels, characters that were already in use two thousand years ago. He did that to make the text correspond with Jesus’s historical time. That was rather esoteric. He has this literal translation but, at the same time, he retranslated it with a colloquial Chinese approach. Actually, he has both the literal and colloquial Chinese texts presented together. That already shows you that Chinese is such an evolving language, that at any stage of history, language has a more literary expression and a more current, colloquial version. So, this tension is always going to be there. This is the earliest example of a systematic approach in the modern era.
Despite the fact that there is a sort of archaic characteristic in this translation of this Bible, is it still relevant today, 50 years after it was first published?
I think we can consider this in view of the Second Vatican Council. Is it still relevant to us? Yes. But in fifty years new problems have arisen. Fifty years ago, when Masses were still mainly in Latin, the use of the vernacular corresponded principally with an understanding of the Mass readings, and Sunday homilies play an important part. The need to read the Bible as a standalone item outside of the liturgical context came in when more and more lay people started studying theology and when Catholic schools are finally using the Bible as a textbook. I would say that this translation gradually became more relevant when more and more lay people started studying theology and when religious education started to become popularized. That’s when the Studium Biblicum Bible assumed a pivotal role. But then, as I said, it is a translation in the written literary form which better serves the purpose of study and research. However, in a pastoral setting, that is in the area of popular preaching and liturgical readings, my feeling is that it has fallen a bit behind now.
This is still the official version of the Bible sanctioned by the Patriotic Church in China. It is also the most sold and widespread version of the Bible in the Mainland, which means that it is being used by some underground Catholics also. Can it help to reinforce the agreement that was announced on last September between the Holy See and Beijing? Could it be an aspect that can bring people together?
I think that with or without the agreement, the common use of the Studium Biblicum translation it is not really what’s driving the underground and the official Church together. I don’t quite see it that way. What really drives this communion is the charity of the clergy on both sides. We cannot forget that, in Mainland China, we haven’t really entered into the phase where lay people are studying theology in an institutional way and where we see lay people conducting religious studies. You see, a standard reference text has more relevance when the Catholic laity are given the opportunity to engage in academic studies…I don’t think that the fact that there exists an official Bible translation [the Studium Biblicum Bible] alone can contribute to a substantial intellectual development, but when the time comes, when the laity can freely take formal programmatic studies of theology and religion, then the point will come …
Do you believe that will happen?
No. Clearly not at this stage…In China, the inviolable golden rule is: religion and formal education should be separated. Of course, there are Bible classes being organized at a parochial and sometimes even on a diocesan level in the form of a pastoral programme. When the time comes, when the laity can actually attend theological classes, a standard Bible edition will prove very, very useful, because then you will be working on an objective exegetical study of the text.
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