Michael Simpson Culbertson
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Michael Simpson Culbertson (January 18, 1819 – August 25, 1862) was an American Presbyterian clergyman, missionary to China, academic and author.
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[edit] Early Life
Michael Simpson Culbertson was born in 1819 in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. He entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, on July 1, 1835 and graduated in 1839. He was commissioned second lieutenant in the First Artillery on July 1, 1839 and served at Rouses Point, New York, during the Northeastern Boundary Dispute. He served briefly as Assistant Professor of Mathematics at the USMA January 1 to February 1, 1840, before being garrisoned again with the First Artillery at Fort Preble, South Portland, Maine, and Hancock Barracks at Houlton, Maine.
On April 15, 1841, he resigned his commission to study theology at Princeton Theological Seminary[1].
[edit] China
Upon his graduation in 1844, Culbertson was ordained by the Presbyterian Church and was sent as a missionary to China by the American Presbyterian Mission. He was stationed in Ningbo from 1845 to 1851 and in Shanghai from 1851 to 1862[1], where he acted as member of the Committee of Delegates on the revision of the Old Testament [2]. Culbertson later withdrew from the Committee of Delegates and co-published a variant of the "Delegate's Version" with Rev. Elijah Coleman Bridgman in 1855[3], with the help of Episcopal Bishop William Jones Boone[4]. He died of cholera in Shanghai in 1862[5].
[edit] Family
Michael Simpson Culbertson was of Irish descent, his paternal great-grandfather, Joseph Culbertson, having emigrated from Ballygan, near Ballymoney, County Antrim, Ireland, to Franklin County, Pennsylvania, around the mid-18th century. Culbertson had two brothers, Joseph (1821-1830) and Thaddeus Ainsworth (1823-1850), author of Journal of an expedition to the Mauvaises Terres and the Upper Missouri in 1850[6] and one sister, Anna Mary (1827-1858)[7]. Michael Simpson Culbertson and his wife had two daughters, who returned to New York with their mother upon their father's death. One daughter, Josephine, born in China in 1852, later became an artist, settled in Carmel, California, and co-founded the Carmel Art Association in 1927[7].
[edit] Published works
- Papers relating to the Shanghai revision of the Chinese scriptures (Shanghai, 1851)[8]
- Reply to the Strictures on the remarks made on the translation of Genesis and Exodus in the revision of the Chinese scriptures (Canton, 1852)[8]
- Essay on the bearing of the publications of the Tai-ping dynasty insurgents on the controversy respecting the proper term for translating the words Elohim and Theos in the Chinese version of the Scriptures (1853)[8]
- The Old Testament (translated by Rev. E. C. Bridgman and Rev. M. S. Culbertson, 1855)
- The Religious Condition of the Chinese, and Their Claims on the Church: A Sermon Preached for the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church (1857)[9]
- Darkness in the Flowery Land; or Religious Notions and Popular Superstitions in North China (New York: Scribner, 1857)
[edit] References
- ^ a b The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod Christian Cyclopedia, <http://www.lcms.org/ca/www/cyclopedia/02/display.asp?t1=C&word=CULBERTSON.MICHAELSIMPSON>. Retrieved on 8 February 2008
- ^ "Protestant Missions among the Chinese" (PDF) (1851). The Chinese Repository XX: 537.
- ^ Eber, Irene (1993). "Translating the Ancestors: S. I. J. Schereschewsky's 1875 Chinese Version of Genesis". Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 56 (2): 219–233. London: School of Oriental and African Studies.
- ^ North (Ed.), Eric (1938). The Book of A Thousand Tongues Being Some Account of the Translation and Publication of All or Part of The Holy Scriptures Into More Than a Thousand Languages and Dealects With Over 1100 Examples from the Text. London and New York: Harper & Brothers.
- ^ William A. Karges Fine Art: Josephine Culbertson (1852-1939), <http://www.kargesfineart.com/josephine-culbertson-biography.html>. Retrieved on 8 February 2008
- ^ Ainsworth, Thaddeus (1952). Journal of an Expedition to the Mauvaises Terres and the Upper Missouri in 1850. U.S. GPO.
- ^ a b Stray Leaves: A James Family in America since 1650 (2004-01-20). Retrieved on 2008-02-08.
- ^ a b c Consolidated List of Titles in SOAS China Pamphlets, compiled by Michael Poon, October, 2004, <http://www.ttc.edu.sg/csca/epub/guides/soascp.html>. Retrieved on 4 February 2008
- ^ Crouch, Archie (1989). CHRISTIANITY IN CHINA: A Scholars' Guide to Resources in the Libraries and Archives of the United States. Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, Inc..
