TBS Chinese Scriptures

Since 2014 a small team of native Mandarin Chinese translators have been undertaking a new faithful translation of the Chinese Bible directly from the Hebrew Masoretic and Greek Received Texts. Mandarin is by far the largest of the Chinese dialect groups, spoken by 70 percent of all Chinese speakers, with close to one billion native speakers.

In 2021 we reported that the new TBS translation of the Chinese four Gospels, Romans and Hebrews was approved for online and print publication, and we hope these endeavours will soon be carried through. We are also delighted to report that, in recent months, the text of the whole New Testament has been submitted to the TBS Editorial Department for checking. God willing, we hope the entire Chinese New Testament will be published later in 2022.

At the time of writing, our translators had just completed Psalm 119 in their Old Testament translation work. Please pray for them as they switch from Greek to Hebrew: the change in source language is a major challenge after seven years of working on the New Testament.

The Society is very grateful for the substantial financial support given by GBS for this major project. ‘And I say unto you, That many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven’ (Matthew 8.11).