Influence of the Orthodox Theological Tradition on Chinese Bible Translations by Orthodox Missionaries in China (in Comparison to the Roman Catholic and Protestant Translations)

In this paper the author attempt to reveal the influence of the Orthodox theological tradition on the Chinese translation of the Gospel of John done by Russian Orthodox missionaries – St. Gury Karpov (1814 – 1882) and metropolitan Innokenty Figurovsky (1863 - 1931). In order to make this study more profound author compares these translations to the Chinese Union Version (CUV, 和合本) (1919) and the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum Sinense (SBFS, 思高本) (1968).
There are hundreds of books and articles on the history and issues of translation of the Bible done by the Roman Catholic and Protestant missionaries and almost no one has ever analyzed Bible translations done by Orthodox missionaries. The author hopes that this research will be a valuable contribution to the study of the Chinese Bible translations.
Research is based on a PhD thesis on comparative analysis of Four Chinese translations of the Gospel of John and for this paper two verses from this Gospel were chosen as the most representative for revealing influence of the Orthodox theological tradition: John 8:58, dealing with the Greek concept, name of God I AM (THAT I AM) or (ἐγώ εἰμί) ego eimi. It is related to the nature of Deity and it was rendered by Roman Catholic/Protestant missionaries with the help of Chinese concept of有yǒu, and Orthodox missionaries applied a concept of在zài; another verse is John 16:33. Roman Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox missionaries had a different understanding of how Greek word θαρσεῖτε (θαρσέω) should be rendered, which can literary be translated as “be full of courage”, “act boldly”, “be confident” and “to take heart”.
In order to reveal the influence of the Orthodox theological tradition on these renderings author uses Commentaries on the Book of John made by the blessed Theophylact of Bulgaria, commentaries from the Explanatory Bible known as the Lopukhin Bible and Homilies on the Gospel of St. John by St. John Chrysostom.