The Chinese Civil War (1946–9) and the Korean War (1950–3) contributed to the beginning of Hong Kong’s evolution from a British colony occupying a geographically peripheral position in South China, to a world centre for Chinese Protestant Bible publishing and distribution in the Cold War era. In 1948, the China Bible House (CBH), the de facto national Bible society of China, decided to establish an emergency office in Hong Kong, responding to the prospect of the Communist takeover of China. Subsequently, as the Korean War unfolded, the CBH, owing to political pressure, desired to sever its connection with the emergency office in 1951. This resulted in the transition of the emergency office into the Hong Kong Bible House (HKBH), the British and American Bible societies’ agency for Chinese Bible publishing and distribution. Thanks to the work of the HKBH, Hong Kong came to be the major source of Bibles for Chinese Protestants outside mainland China.

This article explores the path of the National Bible Society of Scotland (NBSS) to publishing its annotated edition of Proverbs in the Mandarin Union Version in China during the Republican era. After providing an overview of how the NBSS became the first Bible society to publish annotated Chinese Gospels and Acts in the 1890s, this article examines why it took more than three decades thereafter for the NBSS to publish an annotated edition of another biblical book. It argues that one of the main reasons was that the NBSS had difficulty securing reputable scholarly Protestant missionaries’ services to prepare the necessary annotations. Moreover, this article suggests that the familiarity of the Chinese people with short and pithy sayings was a condition favourable for the reception of Proverbs in China. This, together with the status of the Mandarin Union Version as the standard biblical text for Chinese Protestants, helps explain why the NBSS eventually published an annotated edition of Proverbs in the Mandarin Union Version. Annotations in that edition of Proverbs are analysed to understand how they could help bridge the gaps between Proverbs and its Chinese readers, so as to shed light on why such an edition of Proverbs was well-received as an evangelistic tool.

This paper investigates the belated formation of the China Bible House, the first national Bible society in China, as a result of the interplay between the politics of foreign Bible societies and the indigenizing Chinese church in relation to rising nationalism during the Republican era. The challenge of Chinese nationalism to Christianity drove foreign Bible societies and Chinese Protestants to work towards the indigenization of Bible work. However, distrust and conflicts hindered foreign Bible societies' co-operation among themselves and also with Chinese Protestants. While Chinese church leaders saw the founding of a Chinese Bible society as a manifestation of the Chineseness of the Protestant church in China, they agreed with foreign Bible societies on the global identity of Bible work, which justified the latter's continuing presence in China. This understanding, together with the need for foreign financial support and expertise, explains why Sino-foreign co-operation existed in Bible work in China.

This paper examines how the British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS) struggled to defend its ‘without note or comment’ principle in late Qing China, which was a vivid case attesting the tension between the ideals of Protestant missionary societies and the reality of mission fields. The BFBS regarded the ‘without note or comment’ principle as its fundamental principle, since the principle not only embodied its biblical ideology but also helped solicit interdenominational support. However, Protestant missionaries in China urged the BFBS to modify the ‘without note or comment’ principle so as to publish and distribute Chinese Bibles with readers’ helps explaining the biblical world to the Chinese people, who belonged to a non-Christian culture. Having refused the missionaries’ request for several decades, the BFBS eventually published an edition of the Gospel of Matthew in Chinese including explanatory readings called translational helps in 1911, as the BFBS was concerned about the loss of support from missionaries in the face of increasing competition from the National Bible Society of Scotland (NBSS), which began to publish and distribute annotated Chinese Gospels in the 1890s in response to demand. However, this paper argues that the BFBS did not abandon its ‘without note or comment’ principle but instead, by adopting a minimalist approach to compiling its translational helps, the BFBS made use of its Chinese Bibles with translational helps as an expedient means to defend its ‘without note or comment’ principle.

George Mak's article ‘Laissez-faire or Active Intervention? The Nature of the British and Foreign Bible Society's Patronage of the Translation of the Chinese Union Versions' p.171 paragraph 2; ‘On the eve of the Shanghai Conference 1890, in addition to Morrison's version, which had long been out of circulation by that time, the Delegates' Version was the only Chinese translation of the entire Bible.

This paper investigates the nature of the British andForeign Bible Society's (BFBS) patronage of thetranslation of the Chinese Union Versions(CUVs), the largest Chinese ProtestantBible translation project initiated by the westernProtestant churches in the nineteenth century.Drawing on André Lefevere's concept of patronage, itdelves into how the BFBS served as a controllingfactor of the translation of theCUV by examining the BFBS'sfinancial support to the translation project,conferment of honorary titles to the translators andideological influence on the translators’ choice ofGreek text as the basis for theCUVs New Testamenttranslation.