Pastoral Bible (Chinese)
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The Chinese edition of the Christian Community Bible is called the Pastoral Bible (牧靈聖經; pinyin: mùlíng shèngjīng; jyutping: muk6 ling4 sing3 ging1). Work on the translation began in 1991, took 5 years to finish, and the completed translation was published in 1999. This translation is available in both traditional and simplified Chinese.
Since its publication, this translation has been in the centre of a controversy: Based on existing versions of the Christian Community Bible,
- the translation uses easy-to-understand language,
- includes very extensive annotations, and
- its annotations are culturally appropriate and pastorally relevant (a point accepted even by the critics).
However, it has also been criticized as
- being edited by a team of non-experts with no formal training in bible translation;
- being translated not from the original languages (recommended by joint Catholic-Protestant guidelines laid out in Hong Kong in 1987), but instead from the English and other editions of the Christian Community Bible;
- containing numerous errors;
- containing commentaries that do not seem to agree with official church teaching; and
- using a transliteration scheme that matches neither the Studium Biblicum Version nor the Chinese Union Version.
Because of the criticisms, some regard this translation as being a poor translation unsuitable for lay people without extensive prior theological training; at the same time, despite these criticisms, there are also people who recommend this translation to lay people.
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[edit] Typography
The Pastoral Bible uses modern typographical conventions and is typeset horizontally from left to right. It distinguishes between passages the editors feel to be more important and those felt to be less important, and the less important passages are typeset in a smaller font. This treatment allows the bible to stay within a reasonable thickness despite its extensive annotations, which often take up as much as half of the page.
[edit] Online versions
The Pastoral Bible is copyrighted, but the publisher has chosen to allow it to be accessed and downloaded online from their web site free of charge. The downloadable version is in Microsoft Word format; a browsable HTML version is also available.
[edit] References
- Kung Kao Po, issues 2871, 2881, and 2923 (in Chinese) — As of November 2005, these three issues have been taken out of the paper’s web site, but still in Google’s cache; however, the cached copies are expected to expire any time.
- Zenit News Agency news releases, September 7, 1999 [1] and February 2, 2000 [2]
- Web site of Claretian Communications — publisher of the Pastoral Bible
