Taiping Ideology and the Rewriting of the Chinese Bible

The Taiping Tianguo “heavenly kingdom of peace”

The Taiping movement began with the founding of the “God Worshipping Society” (拜上帝會Bai Shangdi Hui) by leader Hong Xiu Quan in 1843, which shared many characteristics of traditional Chinese secret societies—the initiation ritual, the commitment to secrecy, the establishment of a new kinship, and the expectation of a saviour. What separated this new society from other Chinese secret societies was its belief system—instead of having a religious overtone based on traditional Buddhist and Daoist concepts, ² Hong Xiu Quan based his ideology on Christian teachings. It is believed that Hong was introduced to Christianity after reading Liang Fa's nine-volume Quanshi Liangyan (勸世良言 “Good words that admonish the age”) in 1843, after failing his fourth civil examination in Canton (Spence 1996, 51). The work was written by Liang to offer a summary and introduction of the Christian faith to his Chinese audience, and apparently confirmed what Hong had experienced in a vision back in 1837. Hong would also change his name from Huo Xiu (火秀) to Xiu Quan (秀全), in order to avoid the taboo of having the same name (Huo) with God, Ye Huo Hua (爺火華) ³ —a transliteration of “Jehovah” used in the Quanshi Liangyan. ⁴ It is very likely that this work was the major inspiration of Hong's brand of Christianity, as he appeared to read the Bible for the first time during a sojourn in Canton (Guangzhou) in 1847, studying the Old Testament and New Testament under American Baptist missionary I. J. Roberts (Taiping tianri 1848, 27). ⁵ It is also presumable that Hong was finally presented with a Chinese Bible only then, ⁶ which in all likelihood was the Gützlaff Bible, since Roberts was a student of Karl Gützlaff and a member of his Chinese Union (漢福會). Given Hong's relatively late exposure to the Bible, and that his study under Roberts only lasted for about two months, one can speculate that the Christian Scripture played a secondary or even minor role in the formative process of his theology (Kilcourse 2016, 44). This could explain why Hong was so ready to rewrite the Bible in the latter years, trying to make it conform to his already established beliefs and understanding.

The 1853 Taiping edition

From taking up arms and engaging in a military uprising in Jintian in early 1851, to reaching and conquering Nanjing in early 1853, the Taiping rebels had achieved great military successes with surprising speed (Spence 1996, 130–31, 171). Operating from his new capital of Tianjing (“Heavenly capital”), Hong turned his attention to strengthening the ideological hold of the kingdom, publishing the first four books of the Old Testament and the book of Matthew as Jiu yizhao shengshu (舊遺詔聖書 “The Old Testament”) and Xin yizhao shengshu (新遺詔聖書 “The New Testament”), respectively, ⁷ as part of the fourteen official documents of the Zouzhun banxing zhaoshu (奏准頒行詔書 “Edicts issued by imperial approval”). The Taiping translation was based on the Gützlaff Bible, which had incorporated the Group of Four version of 1836 (with some revisions) as its NT portion. ⁸ The OT portion came from Karl Gützlaff's own translation, completed in 1838 but undergoing subsequent minor revisions over the next few years.

Hong's choice of the Gützlaff Bible was not surprising: Not only was it likely the first complete Bible version he was exposed to, but the two earlier Protestant Chinese translations (the Lassar/Marshman Bible of 1822 and the Morrison/Milne Bible of 1823) were completed without the benefit of having a native Chinese readership to provide feedback, and hence were considered by some to be written in awkward, hard-to-understand Chinese. ⁹ Compared to the far greater number of changes found in the second edition of the Taiping Bible in 1861, the close resemblance of the 1853 version to Gützlaff's translation was probably a result of lack of time and resources for Hong to engage in heavy editing during the early stage of settling in Nanjing. Yet, Walter Medhurst was clearly incorrect when he commented on this first Taiping version of 1853,

In the Old Testament they have followed Gützlaff's version, without the alteration of a single character. … In the New Testament they have followed the version prepared by myself and Gützlaff in 1835. … It is one of the earliest of these editions that the insurgents have followed word for word as they found it. (quoted in Zetzsche 1999, 72n73)

Revisions of Gützlaff's translated versions were definitely made; for example, a total of eight verses (vv. 31-38) were deleted from Gen 19 (Kilcourse 2016, 122). The passage narrates the story of Lot and his two daughters after they escaped from the city of Sodom. Fearing that the bloodline of their ageing father was to end, the daughters schemed to bear children by their father. Hong must have felt that the narrative might potentially give justification to incestuous behaviour, and decided to remove the entire section, ending it with v. 30: “Since Lot was afraid of living in Zoar, he left the city of Zoar with his two daughters and went to live in the hills; so he lived there with the two girls” (my translation). This kind of text tampering was unheard of in the history of Bible translation into Chinese, especially because the progress of translations was carefully watched by Bible and missionary societies sponsoring the work, such as the British and Foreign Bible Society (founded in 1804), which not only provided funding to these Bible translation projects but also scrutinized the efforts (Tong 2016, 212–14). If missionaries like Medhurst or Roberts had recognized the heavy text tampering of the Taiping Bibles in the 1853 and especially 1861 editions, the suspicions about the religious integrity of the Taiping insurgence might have become a much bigger issue earlier on. ¹⁰ The deletion from the 1853 edition shows that Hong was already willing to alter the texts of the Christian Bible to suit his liking from very early on, sharing little respect or regard for scriptural integrity.

The 1861 Taiping edition

Among the many works published on Hong Xiu Quan and the Taiping insurgents, few have discussed the heavy tampering with biblical texts in the 1861 edition of the Taiping Old Testament, renamed as Qinding jiu yizhao shengshu (欽定舊遺詔聖書 “The authorized Old Testament”), and the New Testament, renamed as Qinding qian yizhao shengshu (欽定前遺詔聖書 “The authorized Former Testament”). ¹¹ The scholarly focus of the 1861 edition has mostly been on Hong's annotations to the Old and New Testaments, written above the biblical texts. ¹² Although they provide valuable insights into Hong's personal understanding of Christian teachings, the alteration of content provides an equally fascinating look into Hong's attitude towards the biblical texts and his efforts to reshape the biblical accounts to suit his ideology.

An interesting feature of the 1861 edition is that it was a reprint (no layout changes made to the main biblical texts) of the 1853 edition, while the 1853 edition, in contrast, was a new layout of the Gützlaff Bible. As a result, Hong's annotations were added in the top margin of the 1861 edition, and changes in the content portion were made by erasing the original characters of the 1853 edition and replacing them by the same number of new characters, in the same space. Since the 1861 edition was a revised reprint of the 1853 edition, the omission of Gen 19.31-38 (Lot and his daughters) would be expected. Upon further examination, we find that the other arguably “incestuous” account in Genesis was also revised in the 1861 edition—the story of Judah and his daughter-in-law Tamar (Gen 38).

Perhaps because the story of Judah and Tamar is not as blatant a case of incest as Lot and his own daughters, with Tamar being a daughter-in-law and with the complicating factor of the levirate marriage tradition, the 1853 edition did not remove the account and kept Gützlaff's translation in place. However, this story was still embarrassing, if not outright problematic, given that Judah was a patriarchal figure in the Old Testament, an ancestor of David and of the future Messiah. This potential problem certainly did not escape Hong's censorship in the 1861 edition, given that sexual indulgence was a major transgression in the Taiping worldview. In his Yuandao jiushige (原道救世歌 “Ode on the original way of salvation”), Hong lists sexual indulgence as the first of the six “incorrectnesses” of humankind, saying that “sexual indulgence is the first and the chief incorrectness, and mankind enrages Heaven most by becoming (sexually) deviant [變為妖].” ¹³

As one of the Ten Commandments, the rule against sexual immorality is rephrased as the seventh heavenly commandment in Hong's Tiantiao shu (天條書 “Book of the heavenly commandments”), ¹⁴ and at certain places in the 1861 edition this commandment would even be inserted in the text to highlight improper sexual behaviour. For example, in Gen 39.6-7, Potiphar's wife makes sexual advances to Joseph: “Now Joseph was handsome and good-looking. And after a time his master's wife cast her eyes on Joseph and said, ‘Lie with me’” (NRSV). In the 1861 translation, this was changed to: “Now Joseph was handsome and good-looking. And after a time his master's wife wanted to turn deviant [想變妖] and to violate the seventh heavenly commandment on Joseph.” ¹⁵ The phrase bian yao (變妖 “turn deviant”) echoes the usage in both the “Ode on the original way of salvation” and the “Book of the heavenly commandments,” confirming Hong's determined stance against unaccepted sexual behaviour. But since the 1861 edition was a reprint, he could not just remove the whole episode of the Judah and Tamar story like he did in 1853 with the story of Lot and his daughters. So that part of the story was essentially rewritten, and the new version reads, ¹⁶

When Judah saw her, he thought she was just another lady, for she had covered her face. He went over to talk to her at the roadside, for he did not know that she was his daughter-in-law. When Tamar saw her father-in-law, she bowed and said, “I am Tamar, your daughter-in-law.” Judah said, “What are you coming here for?” Tamar said, “You said in the past that you would wait for Shelah to grow up and find him a wife, so that he can have a son to continue your eldest son's bloodline. Now that Shelah has grown up, why haven't you found him a wife to have children with?” “It is because my eldest son died early, and my second son is dead too, so I have been slow in finding Shelah a wife.” Judah said, “You are supposed to be staying at your father's house because of your widowhood; why did you come here?” Tamar said, “Because I have not seen you for a long time, and am concerned about the descendant situation. I sent words to you before, but have not heard back from you. I am also worried about the messenger not passing the message along well. Therefore since you have come here and I am concerned about the continuation of bloodline, I have mustered up the courage to come see you and beg you to find Shelah a wife to have children with. This is to continue your eldest son's bloodline, and to allow me to return to serve you and mother.” Judah said, “I promise I will do that, and you just stay at your father's place during your widowhood.” So Tamar returned to her father's place, and Judah returned home to find Shelah a wife. Not long after Shelah's wife was pregnant, and when Tamar heard it she gave thanks to the Heavenly Father, Lord Huang Shangdi. ¹⁷ When the time of her delivery came, there were twins in her womb. While she was in labor, one put out a hand; and the midwife took and bound on his hand a crimson thread, saying, “This one came out first.” But just then he drew back his hand, and out came his brother; and she said, “What a breach you have made for yourself!” Therefore he was named Perez. Afterward his brother came out with the crimson thread on his hand; and he was named Zerah. Judah thus made Perez heir to Er, and Zerah as Shelah's son. (Gen 38.15-30 NRSV, with rewritten sections in italics, which are my translation)

The rewritten version has conveniently removed a potential source of embarrassment from the OT account. In the original story, not only did the patriarch solicit the service of a prostitute (even though only after the death of his wife) who turned out to be his daughter-in-law, he erred also in breaking his promise to her and depriving her of the chance of a levirate marriage, a fact he himself admitted by saying that Tamar “was more in the right” than he was (Gen 38.26). He was also exceedingly hypocritical in ordering Tamar's execution promptly upon hearing of her rumoured pregnancy, which rabbinic Judaism later described as the violation of shomeret yabam “awaiting the brother-in-law,” during which any other sexual relationship would be considered adultery (Sarna 1989, 269)—even though he had essentially abandoned her by sending her back to her father. Ironically, he himself should also face the death penalty for having sex with his daughter-in-law, though doing so unknowingly. ¹⁸ The Taiping rewriting of Gen 38 far exceeded in extent similar attempts made in Jewish and Christian pseudepigraphical works such as Jubilees and Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, which generally keep the narrative intact but provide additional information to justify Judah's actions or lessen his wrongdoings. ¹⁹ Hence the liberal revisions sanctioned by Hong show far less concern for biblical authority and textual integrity than for ideological considerations that mattered to the regime and its claim for the Heavenly Mandate.

Safeguarding the image of the patriarchs

If the accounts of Lot and his daughters and Judah and Tamar were seen as condoning incestuous relationships and were thus problematic if left unaltered, a few other revisions were more targeted to protect the image of patriarchy in the Old Testament. Using Hong's Tianfu shi (天父詩 “Poems to the Heavenly Father”), Kilcourse has challenged the assumption that the Taipings were liberators of Chinese women, arguing that Hong was very much a defender of Confucian patriarchal values, expecting women to uphold traditional feminine “virtues” such as “quietness, submissiveness, and chastity” (Kilcourse 2016, 163–65).

Genesis 9.20-26 tells of Noah getting drunk one day after working in the vineyard and sleeping naked in his tent. His son Ham saw his father and contemptuously told his brothers about the sight, but they instead covered their father without laying eyes on his nakedness. Since Hong did not approve of drunkenness, criticizing it in “Ode on the original way of salvation” by saying, “Even good wine is not a good substance, and to achieve success one is better refraining from this destructive liquid (literally, ‘soup’),” ²⁰ the account was rewritten to depict Noah falling sleep exposed because he was so tired after work that he collapsed on his bed, naked. ²¹

Other examples of revision include the treatment of the lies of Abraham and Isaac, who denied that Sarah and Rebekah were their wives when they sojourned in a foreign land, hoping to save their lives when local rulers tried to seize the beautiful women. In all three cases (twice for Abraham), the stories of Abraham and Isaac were changed and the patriarchs were no longer portrayed as deceitful—Abraham did not ask Sarah to pretend to be his sister in Gen 12.10-20, but only prayed that God would not have them separated; ²² meanwhile in Gen 20.1-13, he was only forced to call Sarah his sister, not his wife, because she was indeed his half-sister. ²³ In the rewriting of Gen 26.6-9, Isaac called Rebekah his sister because his “subordinates” persuaded him to do so in order to save his life. ²⁴ It is interesting to observe that Hong allowed Isaac to share some of the blame (since at least he allowed himself to be “persuaded”), but Abraham was made to be quite blameless. Still, in all three cases, the patriarchs were depicted as not willingly telling a lie or initiating a deceitful plan.

For Hong, more had to be done for Jacob's trickery. Genesis 27.8-25 witnesses another story of deception, in which Rebekah and Jacob schemed to rob Esau of the blessing of the firstborn, by having Jacob pretend to be his elder brother and fool his blind father Isaac. Since the story involves Rebekah clothing Jacob in Esau's coat (so that Jacob carried his scent), putting goat skin on Jacob to mimic his brother's hairy skin, and Jacob deliberately lying to his father, the rewriting must cover all these traces of inappropriate and deceitful behaviour. The 1861 version first of all erased Jacob's attempt to buy Esau's birthright (translated as “heritage” in the Gützlaff Bible) with a bowl of lentil stew (Gen 25.31-34), and replaced it with Jacob's gentle admonishment for Esau to cherish his birthright, and Esau's offer to share the birthright with Jacob at the end, instead of Esau being lured by his brother to sell it, as in the original story. When it comes to Gen 27.8-25, many of the verses were completely rewritten, ²⁵ as the new version tells of Rebekah being the only one scheming to trick Isaac to give Jacob the firstborn blessing, with Jacob trying to stop her, saying, “Brother is father's beloved, and it is right for father to bless him, and that he should be blessed.” ²⁶ It was Rebekah who insisted on cooking the delicious food for Isaac, and helping Jacob to dress up and put frankincense and myrrh on—an unnecessary detail, but serving the important purpose of covering the deleted part where Rebekah had Jacob put on Esau's clothing and put goat skin on his neck and hands to make them hairy. In the end, Jacob received the blessing without lying—just by showing filial piety and honouring his father with respect and good food, and Isaac was happy that Jacob came piously for a blessing, even before he asked him to (unlike with Esau, from whom Isaac did request food from his game before he would bless him). Once again, the honour of another patriarch is preserved, and as Jonathan D. Spence puts it, Jacob's betrayal “is transformed by Hong into an exemplary story of filial piety. Drama is lost, but honor is saved” (Spence 1996, 257). Also interesting is that in 27.25, the original version tells of Isaac eating the food and drinking the wine that Jacob brought, but Hong was careful to change wine to “stew,” once again removing references to drinking wine.

Conclusion

The 1861 Taiping translation contains many other semantically related revisions that reflect Hong's mindset and theology, though none as lengthy and extensive as some of the examples we have reviewed in this article. As the leader of a peasant revolt and a new religion, Hong understood fully how important it was to establish an ideological base and belief system to support the legitimacy of his Heavenly Kingdom of Peace. Hence, the Taiping translations—especially the 1861 edition—were published with a strong political agenda, and not generally guided by standard translation principles. As important as it was for Hong to include the biblical books among the official Taiping edicts, the deviations from the biblical accounts found in the Taiping editions were perhaps just as telling with regard to his stand and beliefs.