1。 The translation must be in a national language, not dialect;论文网

2。 The wording should be simple and can be understood by all walks of life;

3。 The words must be faithful to the original, and at the same time be in Chinese rhyme;

4。 The metaphor should be literal translated, rather than be paraphrased。

1。2。2 Other Popular Versions

Chinese New Version of the Bible is translated by Bible Society and published in 1979。 And the revised version was published in 1997。 Since the Chinese Union Version was translated in the early time of the Vernacular Movement, there has been great gap between it and modern Chinese in using words and phrase。 Besides, it was based on the original manuscripts which can’t be compared in terms of quantity or quality with the existing transcripts。 In responding to people’s appeal to a new version of the Bible, Bible Society decided to launch in line with modern vernacular to make it easier for Chinese, especially the none-believers to read。 

1。3 Structure of the Thesis

The thesis consists of five major chapters。 The first chapter gives a brief introduction to the study object, background, purpose, significance, and theory applied in the thesis。 The second chapter aims to provide an overall picture of previous studies on biblical translation in China and abroad, and also gives a brief introduction of proper nouns。 The third chapter gives a detailed explanation of Linguistic Adaption Theory on which this thesis is based。 The forth chapter, core of this thesis, gives specific examples in the New Testament employed in CUV and other popular versions to give an insightful strategy for Chinese Bible translation under the adaption theory。 Based on the discussions from chapter two to chapter four, a conclusion is reached at the last part。

2 Literature Review

2。1 Translation Strategy of Proper Nouns

Proper nouns, also known as proper names, illustrating names of person, nation, location, institution, trademark, television show, newspapers and magazine, historical event, cultural genre, etc。 The initials of proper nouns are usually capitalized while writing。 Obviously, the main function of proper nouns is to convey the messages which is recognized as informative function。 The proper nouns in the Bible convey a large amount of information, and have direct impact on how readers understand Bible and Christian culture。 

When translating proper nouns, it must be based on its context。 There are some specific methods used in proper nouns translation, such as adopting the established popular translated names, back translation, omission (Hu, 2006)。 As for biblical translation, there are two main methods: transliteration and annotation。 Most of the names in the Bible use the method of transliteration。 As for annotation, since the differences in cultures, it’s a common useful method applied in Bible translation all over the world。 But the principle premise is that translators should have mastery of the culture on which the context bases (Hu, 2006)。

2。2 Biblical Translation文献综述

2。2。1 Bible Translation History Aboard

“Bible” originates from the Greek word “Biblia”, which means “bound volume of books” and was written by prophets and disciples from different nations and generations。 It contains two parts: Old Testament and New Testament。 The first is a record of Jewish history for over one thousand years and was originally written in Hebrew language, and the second is the standard Christian scriptures and was written in Greek language。 This thesis will focus on the translation of New Testament, and the earliest translation is the Latin translation “Vulgate” by Saint Jerome around 3th century。 It kept be used as the official version in west churches until Reformation。 The reformer Martin Luther believed everyone had the right to read the Bible, so he determined to translate an approachable and plain Germany version and published in September of 1522。 It became a widely disseminated German version。 To make the proper noun “Burnt Offering” more approachable, he went to abattoir and observed the whole process of how to kill a sheep, and asked butcher proper names of sheep’s different entrails。 He went for Jewish scholars to learn the currency in the Bible, paid attention to how people used language in their daily life of his neighbor。 Although there’s no theory at that time, what Martin did is actually to translate between two different “cultures” to make it easier for readers to understand。 Besides, it has a great significance in shaping the modern high Germany language。 The first English version was translated from Latin version by John Wycliffe, and since then, many versions prompted up in west。 Because of this, there are different opinions on which version to choose。 The main disagreement was between Church of England who supported Bishop Bible (published in 1568) and Puritans who supported Gevena Bible (published in 1560)。 To settle down this argue, James-I (1566-1625) appointed 54 scholars (actually 47) from different denominations to compile a version based on all English versions at that time so that can be adopted by all churches。 It was known as James King Version。 With the development of language and society, and the help of the new findings of archaeology studies of the Bible, the demand for a revised version can’t be delayed。 Then came the English Revised Version (1881) in Britain and American Standard Bible (1901), the very influential one is Revised Standard Version (1952)。 Basically, there are 16 English version known by people, and the most popular version nowadays is English Standard Version published by Crossway Bibles in 2001。