The Legend of The Lost Book and The Lisu People

‘The Legend of The Lost Book and The Lisu People’ recounts how the Lisu people long believed an ancient tale that their ancestor had lost a sacred book given by their god, Wu Sa, which a dog had eaten. This legend said that one day a white man would come from afar bringing back their lost book and king. In the early 1900s, missionary James O. Fraser of the China Inland Mission arrived in the Lisu mountains with the Gospel. Many believed he fulfilled the prophecy, but he taught them that their true King was Jesus Christ.

Fraser, with the help of a Karen evangelist named Ba Thaw, created a written script for the previously unwritten Lisu language—now called the Fraser Script—and began translating the Bible. The New Testament was completed in 1938, and the full Bible in 1968. Despite persecution during China’s Communist era, the Lisu church endured, and today the majority of Lisu in China and Myanmar are Christians.

The Trinitarian Bible Society (TBS) published a Lisu Bible in 1980 based on the Received Text, and ongoing revisions continue so the Lisu people may once again have a fully faithful edition of God’s Word in their own tongue.

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