The influence of the Chinese translation of the Bible as seen in the Meiji Bible translation: focusing on terminological inheritances and changes in the Book of Psalms

In the history of Japanese Bible translation, the Meiji Translation, published in 1887, was the first complete translation of the Bible in Japan and was widely acclaimed as ‘the great translation of the Meiji period’. It had a profound influence on the intellectuals of that era. The Meiji Translation sought not only to remain as faithful as possible to the meaning of the original scriptures but also drew heavily on the Chinese versions of the New and Old Testaments translated by American missionaries Elijah Coleman Bridgman and Michael Simpson Culbertson, collectively referred to hereafter as the BC Translation. In addition, the King James Version (KJV) also served as an important reference. Consequently, the Meiji Translation incorporated a number of Chinese lexical items and expressions borrowed from the BC Translation, alongside notable modifications that diverged from it. This paper focuses on the Chinese expressions found in the Psalms section of the Meiji Translation. It explores the reasons behind both the direct borrowings and the alterations of these Chinese terms from the perspective of reception history theory, and analyzes the influence that the Chinese BC Translation exerted on the Japanese Meiji Translation.