Journal of Messianic Jewish Studies Journal of Messianic Jewish Studies
Volume 4 Article 8
2023
The Jewish Bishop and the Chinese Bible The Jewish Bishop and the Chinese Bible
Mitch Glaser
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The Jewish Bishop
and the Chinese Bible
Mitch Glaser
Editor’s Note: The reader will notice this article was originally
written as a book review of the 1999 hiorical work by Dr.
Irene Eber, The Jewish Bishop and the Chinese Bible: S.I.J.
Schereschewsky (1831–1906), which was in Studies in Chriian
Mission, Brill: Leiden, 1999. However, the length and content of the
review merited inclusion with the the other journal articles related
to Chriians and the Hebrew Scriptures.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
AND INTRODUCTION
Dr. Matt Friedman, professor of Intercultural Studies at
Kingswood University, began his chapter in a book celebrating
the hundredth anniversary of the 1910 World Missionary
Conference held in Edinburgh, Scotland by summarizing the
ways God used Jewish believers in Jesus to touch the world. Dr.
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Friedman oers the following summary by Rev. William Ewing
who writes in 1910,
A youth named Lederer was converted in Budape. Glowing
with fresh enthusiasm, he went to New York. There he met
a young, able, and accomplished udent, Schereschewsky
by name, and led him to Chri. Schereschewsky went to
China, acquired the language, and translated for the r
time the Old Teament into Chinese, direct from the original
Hebrew, of which he was absolute maer. His translation is
the andard Chinese version to-day – the inrument used
by every missionary in the land. By the blessing of God, the
conversion of a Jewish youth in Budape was the means of
giving the Bible to the va Empire of China. This one fact
surely sheds a vivid light upon that word of the great Jewish
Chriian missionary “If the caing away of them be the
reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be
but life from the dead?”
1
Friedman’s mention of Schereschewsky provides the fundamental
reason why so many who are concerned with both Jewish
missions and world missions pay careful attention to the life and
work of one who is aectionately called “the Jewish Bishop.”
I would augment Dr. Friedman’s summary of the life of
Bishop Samuel Isaac Joseph Schereschewsky (1831–1906), who
translated the Hebrew Old Teament into vernacular Mandarin,
by noting he was the Anglican Bishop of Shanghai, China, from
1877 to 1884 and the founder of St. John’s University (1879), a
well-known Academic initution in China.
He was baptized by immersion in 1855 and joined
a Bapti congregation, but he soon became a Presbyterian
and went to Weern Theological Seminary (now Pittsburgh
1 Qtd. in Matt Friedman, “Back to the Future: Nineteenth Century Foundations
for Messianic Judaism” in Witnessing to Chri in a Pluraliic World: Chriian
Mission among Other Faiths, edited by Lalsangkima Pachuau and Knud
Jørgensen (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2011), 204.
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91Mitch Glaser
The Jewish Bishop and the Chinese Bible
Theological Seminary), a Presbyterian Church-sponsored
seminary.
Two years later he again changed denominations and became
Episcopalian, entering General Theological Seminary in New
York City. He did not complete his degree as he volunteered for
mission work in China. On May 3, 1859, he was appointed as a
missionary to China and ordained as a deacon on July 17, 1859
at the Episcopal Calvary St. George’s church in Manhattan, New
York City. He sailed to China from New York on July 14, 1859.
During the journey, which took almo six months, he received
inruction in Chinese. Along with another missionary, he was
ordained to the priehood by Bishop Boone on October 28, 1860.
He translated Old Teament into Mandarin, which was
published in December 1874. Schereschewsky was ordained the
Bishop of China in 1878. On April 21, 1868, he married Susan
Mary Waring (1837–1909). One observer commented, “No
one save the Bishop himself knows how much the successful
completion of his work is due to the devoted self-sacrice of
Mrs. Schereschewsky.”
2
The American Bible Society published his revised Mandarin
Old Teament in 1899, and the entire “easy Wenli” Bible was
published in 1902. The demand overwhelmed the publisher.
Schereschewsky also participated in the committee to translate
the New Teament, which was published in 1872.
3
Missionary hiorian Marshall Broomhall wrote: “The success
of this version was more immediate, more widespread, and more
permanent than the mo sanguine of the translators had hoped. It
marked an epoch in the hiory of the Bible in China.”
4
In the same year, the Book of Common Prayer appeared. John
2 James Arthur Muller, Apole of China, Samuel Isaac Joseph Schereschewsky,
1831-1906 (New York: Morehouse Pub. Co., 1937), 236–237.
3
Muller, 65.
4 Muller, 88.
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Burdon, the Anglican bishop of Hong Kong, partnered with the
bishop in this eort. The two also translated several hymns.
Schereschewsky’s major miniry focus and greate
achievement, however, was the painaking translation of the
Old Teament into Mandarin, which was published in December
1874. The American Bible Society not only supported this project
but paid the salaries of Schereschewsky and one of his Chinese
assiants.
His remarkable linguiic prociency included the ability to
speak thirteen languages and read twenty. Despite his almo
total paralysis later in life and connement to a chair all day long,
he labored at his task for an average of nine hours a day for the
re of his life.
5
A fellow bishop remarked, after visiting Schereschewsky
in his udy, that he was “much superior to myself and all his
surroundings. . . . He ruck me as a man not only of great
scholarship but of exceptional renement of temper and nobility
of spirit”
6
Commenting on Schereschewsky’s monumental
achievement, the eminent Presbyterian missionary W.A.P. Martin
wrote, “Such an example of heroic perseverance, combined with
such abilities and such antecedent preparation for his work, is
rarely met.”
7
After his be assiant left to rejoin his family in China,
however, Schereschewsky found it very dicult to get along
with the man who replaced him. “What with scribal irritation
and delays in printing and printer’s errors, which were legion, the
Bishop found it ‘rather uphill work.’”
8
5 “Samuel Schereschewsky,” Biographical Dictionary of Chinese
Chriianity, accessed January 20, 2023, http://bdcconline.net/en/ories/
samuel-isaac-joseph-schereschewsky.
6
Muller, 215.
7 Muller, 220.
8 Muller, 234.
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93Mitch Glaser
The Jewish Bishop and the Chinese Bible
Work at it he did, nevertheless, for eight hours a day, six days
a week.
The Bible Society published the new Mandarin version,
including his revised Mandarin Old Teament, in 1899. The
entire Easy Wenli Bible was published in 1902. The demand for
it overwhelmed the publisher. One observer commented, “No
one save the Bishop himself knows how much the successful
completion of his work is due to the devoted self-sacrice of
Mrs. Schereschewsky.”
9
He died in 1902 and his wife, Mary Schereschewsky, died
on Augu 20, 1909. She had been nearly blind since before
her husband died. All agreed it would have been impossible for
Schereschewsky to have done his work without her conant
and comprehensive support and help. She was buried in Tokyo
beside her husband. One cross mark their graves.
ABOUT IRENE EBER (1929-2019)
The author of this biography of the Jewish Bishop was written by
Israeli scholar, Irene Eber. Dr. Eber was a Holocau survivor and
China scholar who was the r to hold the Louis Frieberg chair
of Asian Studies at Hebrew University. She received her PhD in
1966 from the Claremont Graduate University in California in
Chinese Intellectual Hiory.
In his moving eulogy of Dr. Eber, the former Chairman of the
Department of Ea Asian Studies at the Hebrew University, Dr.
Yitzhalk Shichor writes,
She was born in Halle (Germany). Irene’s family was
expelled to Mielec in Poland in 1938, when she was nine.
She managed to survive, spending the war years hiding in a
9 Muller, 236–237.
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chicken coop, in misery and deprivation, a ory which she
told in her autobiographical book The Choice: Poland, 1939-
1945 (New York: Schocken, 2004), and after the war left as
a refugee to the United States. In the United States she could
have udied anything but chose Chinese intellectual hiory.
Unknowingly, this was her r ep on her way to Israel.
He continues,
The ory of the late Professor Irene Eber, who passed away
on April 10, 2019, is a typical Jewish ory and I want to tell
her ory from my own perspective. Few people are aware
of the ory. In 1987 I ended my term as chairman of the
Department of Ea Asian Studies at Hebrew University. Prof.
Eber was selected to replace me. Although her academic work
began with China’s intellectual hiory, and more specically
with one of modern China’s leading reformers, much of her
later eorts were concentrated on the links between Judaism
and the Jews with China. Her late book Jewish Refugees in
Shanghai in 1933 through 1947 was published months ago
on March 13, 2019. She left a legacy of udies on China,
its intellectual hiory, Confucianism, Jewish communities in
China and the hiory of Judaism in China.
10
From the perspective of Messianic Jewish hiory, Eber,
perhaps because she was a secular Jewish scholar, did not focus
on or fully comprehend the spiritual commitments of Bishop
Schereschewsky. She described what I would characterize as his
spiritual choices and concomitant actions in initutional terms
such as his relationship to the Episcopal Church, becoming a
bishop, and the details of interchurch politics both in the United
States and on the mission eld of China. Eber focused on
Schereschewsky’s work of translation methodology, and to some
10 Eber was a member of the Middle Ea Initute and participated regularly
with their programs (Yitzhak Shichor, “Professor Irene Eber, 1929-2019,”
Middle Ea Initute New Delhi, April 12, 2019, http://www.mei.org.in/mei-
remembers-18). Also see: Holly Mengel, “Irene Eber’s ‘Choice’ to Tell Her
Story,” Unique at Penn, September 16, 2021, https://uniqueatpenn.wordpress.
com/2021/09/16/irene-ebers-choice-to-tell-her-ory/.
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95Mitch Glaser
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degree his personal hiory and accomplishments. Yet she says
very little about the spiritual dynamic that led to his dedication
to Jesus the Messiah and the personal spirituality that motivated
him to do the work he was be known for within China. To learn
more about his “conversion” and spiritual pilgrimage, one mu
review other sources and biographical material beyond the pale
of Eber’s underanding and interes.
FOCUS OF THE ARTICLE
This article will focus on Schereschewsky’s faith in Jesus the
Messiah as a Jewish man and as a well-trained udent of the
Bible and Hebrew language. We will explore the ways Dr. Irene
Eber, the author of the biography, underood the bishop’s faith
and what this meant to him in various areas of his life. We believe
his faith in Jesus the Messiah was at the core of his motivation
for the embracing lifelong work of translating the Hebrew
Bible into Chinese and doing so with great sacrice of soul.
Eber places greater focus on the socio-hiorical dimensions of
Schereschewsky’s life, yet we sugge that if this inner spiritual
drive is not fully underood, it is impossible to fully underand
the accomplishments of the bishop. We will attempt to add this
dimension and perspective to Eber’s mo able eort.
THE EARLY YEARS
The bishop was born was born Samuel Isaac Joseph
Schereschewsky in May 1831 to an Orthodox Jewish family in
the town of Touragè, a shtetel
11
in southweern Lithuania.
11 One of a series of small Jewish villages dotting the landscape of the Pale of
Settlement, which included areas of Russian Lithuania, where the bishop was
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The family was well-o and lived in a college town where
a third of the total population of 6,655 was Jewish. His father
spent many months away from home cutting down trees and
bringing them to the sawmills in the areas primarily owned by
Jewish families. Touragè was built on a road with commercial
and religious connections to many other cities, and the culture
was inuenced by the Jewish communities in the we and ea.
The Schereschewsky family was well-known in Jewish
Lithuania and was Ashkenazi, though his mother was part
Sephardic. He was named Samuel Joseph after his father, which
was a Sephardic tradition. He learned the basics of Jewish life
and religion, attending cheder (weekly Hebrew school). At r,
he did not attend a yeshiva (boys’ private religious school) as his
parents felt it was too expensive.
However, as time went by, Schereschewsky faced the
possibility of long-term conscription into the Russian army.
Since attending yeshiva was one way to avoid that possibility,
his family decided to send their son to the well-known yeshiva in
Zhitomir, a town in what is now Ukraine. He left home to udy
in 1847 at sixteen years of age.
The yeshiva in Zhitomir was well-known and yet for a time
was viewed as “modern” as it was heavily inuenced by the
Haskalah, the Jewish Enlightenment. He udied more secular
topics during this unique moment in the yeshiva’s hiory.
Schereschewsky enjoyed his time and completed a four-year
general degree after which he was able to specialize in rabbinic
udies or teacher training.
12
According to Eber, “it furthermore exposed young Jewish
boys, mo of them probably for the r time, to non-Jews who
are neither peasants nor servants.” Some of the teachers at this
born.
12
Eber, The Jewish Bishop and the Chinese Bible, 26.
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97Mitch Glaser
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yeshiva were leading men of what was known as the Russian
Haskalah and wrote books and articles on topics related to
society and religion in both Yiddish and Hebrew.
13
Schereschewsky and the other udents were allowed to wear
European dress and not required to wear a yarmulke. The Bible
was taught in German—mo likely Mendelssohn’s (1729–1786)
translation. “Bible and language udy were separated, thereby
allowing teachers to inruct their charges in the syematic udy
of the Hebrew language.”
14
Eber sugges this early experience caused the young
Schereschewsky, who was reading a translated Bible, to become
aware of the importance of a well-prepared translation. This
yeshiva and others like it grew increasingly unpopular with the
local and traditional orthodox community and closed in 1885.
According to Eber, “these new republic schools were said
to support apoasy and to be eppingones to conversion.
. . . Such fears were not exaggerated for even if they did not
actively support apoasy, it was certainly a means towards
secularization.”
15
According to Eber it was quite possible that the teachers
at this Yeshiva udied other German philosophers and that
Schereschewsky was introduced to these writers and secular
thinkers.
She adds a artling atement that gives a window into the
role of Jewish missions in Lithuania at this time, “the London
Society for Promoting Chriianity among the Jews, moreover,
was circulating large numbers of Yiddish and Hebrew Old and
New Teaments, and the latter especially aroused the curiosity
of young inquiring minds.”
16
13 Ibid, 26–27.
14 Ibid, 27.
15 Ibid, 29.
16 Ibid, 30.
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BECOMING A BELIEVER
IN JESUS THE MESSIAH
Eber claims that not only did this Haskalah-inuenced udy
program open the mind of Schereschewsky and inuence his
scholarship, but it also impacted his soul. She was certain the
London Society
17
New Teaments, in whole or in part, found
their way into the school. However, as much as I personally
appreciate hearing about the eorts of the Jewish missions,
Eber did not subantiate her claim with any noted research
though these resources were available at the time Eber wrote
the book.
We do not underand why she did not take this extra ep
to review various LJS annual reports and hiories of the LJS
available at the Bodleian library at Oxford. This could easily
be done, but it seems the available resources were not used or
noted.
She simply writes, “whether it [the New Teament] was on
one of the teachers’ bookshelves, or whether one of the udents
brought it to the Yeshiva, it was mo certainly clandeinely
passed from hand to hand.” She suggeed the New Teament
both fascinated and repelled young readers. She adds, “Intere
in this text, so very dierent from anything that they ever read,
probably ranged from intense rejection to mild curiosity.”
18
Yet, once again, she shows no actual hiorical
documentation Schereschewsky found or read the New
Teament in the yeshiva, though there is no evidence to believe
she is miaken or overating. She writes “there is little doubt
Schereschewsky’s r encounter with Chriianity, via the
17 The London Jews Society (LJS) was a Jewish mission sponsored by the
Anglican church.
18
Ibid.
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99Mitch Glaser
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New Teament, occurred at the yeshiva.”
19
Years later in 1859,
his letter of application to enter a missionary career ated he
had been a believer in Jesus for seven years. This would mean
he became a Jesus follower in 1852.
It is possible his newfound faith was one of the reasons
he decided to withdraw from the yeshiva as Schereschewsky
left Zhitomir in 1852 and arrived in Breslau, Germany after an
additional year of rabbinic udies in Frankfurt. Eber asks, “was
there a chance encounter with a missionary? Or did someone
give him a name, an address, and sugge contacting members
of the London Society in Germany, where the London Society
has been especially active in the pa two decades?”
20
Once again, this is speculation on Eber’s part as she does
not utilize archival material and apparently leans upon more
anecdotal information.
According to Eber, upon arrival in Breslau, Germany,
Schereschewsky worked as a glazier— one who works with
glass. In an intereing footnote, Eber quotes David Eichhorn, a
Jewish scholar who wrote his dissertation on nineteenth-century
Jewish missions and mentions that one of the occupations
Hebrew Chriians were taught in Germany was to work with
glass.
21
Once again, Eber takes some liberty in positing the
ways Schereschewsky may have been inuenced by LJS
missionaries. She mentions, “for the activities of the London
Society and other less well-known and short-lived societies
were directed towards Jewish paupers in addition to non-
Jewish immigrants in Germany’s port cities.” She adds, “ill,
the young Schereschewsky, now 19 or 20 years old and about to
19 Ibid.
20 Ibid, 31.
21 Ibid, 32.
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embark on a momentous journey into the outside world would
have had few misgivings about leaving Eaern Europe.”
22
She sugges he may have udied at the University of
Breslau, but there is little evidence to subantiate this idea.
She adds that Schereschewsky may have heard of Dr. Henricus
Chriophillius Neumann (1778–1865) through sympathizers in
Zhitomir. Neumann was a lecturer in Hebrew at the University
of Breslau and, according to Eber, was a covert “agent” of the
LJS. The hiory of the LJS corroborates the ory as Neumann
served with the LJS for two decades and taught at the University
of Breslau. He was also a Jewish believer in Jesus.
According to Eber, “If these assumptions are correct,
Schereschewsky’s arrival in Breslau was far from accidental.
Even as early as 1852 he may have accepted the warm
fellowship and help oered by the LJS rather than turning to
the mainream Jewish community.”
23
We can see that Eber is framing Schereschewsky’s turning
to Chriianity as something based upon his need, cultural
background, and the possible “duplicitous” attention from
members of the LJS towards young impressionable men who
were deemed ready to move outside of Orthodoxy. She wrote,
In spite of their small membership and their essentially
ephemeral exience, the many Proteant missionary
societies were amazingly active, with missionaries and
converts or potential converts maintaining personal
relationships between Europe and America. The intensely
mobile Jewish population, both within and without Germany,
provided a fruitful eld for missionaries to extend a helping
hand to single young men only ju emerging from close
knit small communities in Eaern Europe. Although the
missionary goal was eventual conversion or baptism—an
eort that sometimes took years—they also oered advice,
22 Ibid, 33.
23 Ibid.
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101Mitch Glaser
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shelter and employment. Saving souls often began with
saving bodies. In addition, missionary societies provided
a new social context for people who were ca adrift and
had a need to belong. The missionaries were active in mo
major Ea Prussian and Silesian cities, for example, Berlin,
Leipzig and Cologne. The number of Proteant baptism in
Breslau was especially high.
24
Once again Eber fails to quote directly from LJS missionary
reports, which were readily available. There is no reason to
queion her quantication of the LJS’ eorts at the time as
various resource corroborate the level of their missionary work
in Germany at the time.
25
She does make some use of W.T.
Gidney’s hiory of the LJS as a secondary source quoted by
Dr. Louis Meyers, a well-known and respected Messianic Jew
and hiorian of missions to the Jews during this period.
Eber goes into some length regarding the “conversion” of
Schereschewsky, suggeing he became a believer in Jesus in
Breslau. She shows a bit more underanding of the gospel
message the bishop believed:
The message was simple and, while it may have been
expressed in dierent ways, it always contains two central
elements: acceptance of Jesus Chri as the savior, and
the fulllment of Messianic prophecy. Belief in Jesus was
sometimes described as the direct approach to the “heart
of God” through Jesus, the Savior, with no need for human
intermediaries. Messianic expectations, the missionaries
explained, is a part of Judaism. Even the holy trinity, without
24 Ibid, 33–34. She draws her information from an article penned by Dr. Louis
Meyer writing in the Missionary Review of the World, vol. 15, 12 [December
1902], 905–906. She also quotes from LJS hiorian, W.T. Gidney’s work on the
hiory of the LJS (Eber, The Jewish Bishop and the Chinese Bible, 128–129).
25
W.T. Gidney, The Hiory of the London Society for Promoting Chriianity
among the Jews, from 1809 to 1908 (London: London Society for Promoting
Chriianity among the Jews, 1908).
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which the coming of the Messiah cannot be explained, is
mentioned in Jewish sources.
26
She goes on to say “the Jew was not asked to give up anything”
regarding identity:
All Jews were asked to do was to include faith in Jesus Chri
in their belief. They did not have to join the church either
before or after baptism, they can continue to observe some or
all of the Jewish commandments (mitzvot) if they so desired.
As part of their recompense, Jews would gain entrance into a
new congregation of believers in which they would have full
atus. No longer outsiders, they would belong.”
27
Eber thought Schereschewsky and other “converts” to
Chriianity through the mission agencies were told that they
would not lose their Jewish identity but rather it would be
rengthened. Far from losing their Jewish identity, the converts’
Jewish identity is rearmed. She said that the missionaries
taught the Jewish believers that “their role in God’s plan [was]
given a special, universal meaning. Proselytizing Jews is thus a
holy task, and each Jewish conversion brings the world process
one ep closer to salvation for all.”
28
This accurately reects what she believed the missionaries
were teaching Schereschewsky regarding Romans 11:25–36.
However, Eber does not think Schereschewsky was baptized
in Breslau, which in Eber’s mind was synonymous with becoming
a believer in Jesus and joining the church. She writes,
More importantly, [those who inuenced him in Breslau] also
played a role in his intellectual development and his concept
of mission, enunciated at a later time. They also contributed
toward his self-identication as a Chriian who wished to
26 Ibid, 34.
27 Ibid.
28 Ibid, 35.
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103Mitch Glaser
The Jewish Bishop and the Chinese Bible
retain his culture and pa experience by integrating them
with another faith. His encounter with Judeo-Chriian
ideas, both in conversations and from reading about them
[in various missionary publications] probably left a deep
and laing impression. Many years later, Schereschewsky’s
name ill appeared on the patrons li of several Hebrew
Chriian Brotherhoods, as these societies were later called
in America.
29
Eber concludes that Schereschewsky’s academic and religious
mentor in Breslau was Dr. Neumann, whose academic career
began in 1832 and greatly inuenced both Jewish udents and
more learned Jews. She writes,
Still active in the early 1850s, when he was already some
seventy years old, he was the sort of grandfather gure
young Schereschewsky had never known. A kindly old man,
Neumann cared especially for the young men among his
udents who, having left home, were now embarked on a
new and daunting venture. . . . he provided a model for young
men like Schereschewsky. Associated with the London
Society for over two decades, when young Samuel arrived in
Breslau, it is likely that Neumann introduced the newcomer
to the ideology of Jewish Chriianity. He may have even
directed Schereschewsky’s academic udies at a crucial time
in the young man’s life. . . .
Literary texts were used for the teaching of European
languages, and unspecied hiorical texts, portions of the
Old Teament and prophetic books for Hebrew. Between
1842 and 1845 . . . Neumann taught a variety of Hebrew
grammar courses based on Genesis, the Books of Samuel
and Malachi. He also taught the Psalms, Amos and selected
hiorical texts. He seems not to have authored many books.
30
She adds, mo importantly from our perspective, rational
theology and biblical criticism did not ourish at Breslau. The
29 Ibid.
30 Ibid, 36.
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faculty for Proteant theology gave Schereschewsky access to
the works of men who were well-known and more conservative
scholars of the Hebrew Old Teament at the time. Eber ates,
“in short, Breslau was his r syematic introduction to the
New Teament, to Chriian theology and to ethics as well as
to Greek, English and French.”
31
Again, Eber was uncertain whether Schereschewsky was
ocially enrolled at Breslau or if he simply attended lectures
and was inuenced by Neumann. However, she writes, “the
Greek he learned in Breslau was sucient to allow him to read
the New Teament in that language, as was noted later by his
American teacher, Professor Samuel H Turner.”
32
Additionally, Eber mentions China was not quite on the
consciousness of German theologians and Chriians in the
We as it was to become thirty years later. But reaching the
Chinese with the gospel message was already a growing
concern in the early 1850s. There was a well-known lecture
in 1850 by Carl Godslove who called for men and women to
become missionaries to China. She says it is possible he was
inuenced by the echoes of this message reverberating through
the community of faith in Breslau.
33
In the 1840s and 50s there was increasing intere in
missionary work in China as well as the translation of the
Bible into Chinese. Eber summarizes the Breslau portion of
Schereschewsky’s life as follows:
Schereschewsky mu have had access to these articles
in Breslau, thereby further imulating his intere in Bible
translation awakened by reading the Mendelssohn Bible [a
German version of the Old Teament]. . . .
31 Ibid, 37.
32 Ibid.
33 Ibid, 37.
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105Mitch Glaser
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The problems connected with translating the Bible into
Chinese provided a linkage that joined intellectual intere
with personal and spiritual needs. Although the connection
between Bible, mission and translating would have been
only vaguely articulated then, if at all, it partially explains
why Schereschewsky took the fateful ep of immigrating
to America in 1854 and why, after only a little more than
a year at the Weern Theological seminary, he requeed a
missionary appointment in 1857.
34
NEW YORK CITY
AND THEOLOGICAL STUDIES
Caroline Cheryl Schereschewsky, Joseph’s daughter, wrote
that her father had come to America because, “democratic
ideals appealed to him because Jews did not have to suer the
indignities they did in Europe.”
35
Eber mentions that Schereschewsky had a letter of
introduction to John Neander “a convert and missionary agent”
(note Eber’s prejudicial language) given to him by John Jacobi,
who was a a member for LJS and immigrated to America in
the 1820s. Jacobi was the publisher of a German newspaper in
St. Louis and sporadically acted as an agent for the American
Society for Ameliorating the Condition of the Jews.
36
Eber
notes,
Neumann may have arranged this letter, although the
missionaries also recruited emigrants waiting at ports of
embarkation. One such short-lived missionary group in
Bremen was the ‘Society of Friends of Israel’ in which
34 Ibid.
35 Ibid, 40.
36 Ibid, 41.
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Neander was active before his departure for America in
1845 and with whom Jacobi had worked.
37
She writes about Schereschewsky possibly joining a group, “not
so much out of solidarity with the Jewish community as for
companionship and practical support in managing the crossing.”
38
Eber obviously held a traditional mainream Jewish view of
Jewish believers in Jesus and did not recognize the depth of faith
and connection with other Jewish believers and Jesus as the real
reason why Schereschewsky identied with other Messianic Jews
in America at that time. She viewed this move in sociological
rather than spiritual terms and believed Schereschewsky was
acting out of need and not necessarily out of conviction.
Eber mentions that Schereschewsky would have landed
in New York City in March or Augu 1854. Immediately,
according to Eber, his letter of introduction proved eective.
“Inead of turning for help to any of the exiing German or
Jewish networks, he was aided by the American Society and its
German Jewish converts.”
39
Eber writes,
During the year and a half that he remained in New York,
Schereschewsky lived, worked and walked in these parts
of Manhattan [the poor areas]. Here, and venturing into the
newer business diricts we, he plied his trade as glazier,
needing only his diamond for cutting and a frame box with
glass. . . .
The Jewish population within the immigrant communities
grew by leaps and bounds. Between 1825 and 1865, the
10,000 rong community increased to 150,000. The Jewish
community of New York lo its monolithic character as the
initial Sephardi community of Portuguese and Spanish Jews
37 Ibid.
38 Ibid.
39 Ibid, 43. The American society refers to the American Association for the
Amelioration of the Condition of the Jews, which was eablished by Joseph Fry,
the founder of the LJS in the UK.
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107Mitch Glaser
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was soon outnumbered by the German Jews and a sprinkling
of Polish, Russian and other Eaern European Jewish co-
religionis. Although by 1850 they were nine congregations
with synagogues on the lower Ea Side, congregational life
among the German-Jewish immigrants developed slowly.
40
According to Eber, who viewed religious fervor primarily in
sociological terms of changes and circumances, the reactions
of this group to their new life in a new land were often mixed.
They resied change yet were also quick to abandon their old
ways and tended to rapidly assimilate. “Among these uprooted
men and women, Proteant missionaries—themselves moly
immigrant converts—sought candidates for conversion.”
41
According to Eber, the Jewish missions were active for more
than two decades and moly interdenominational in aliation
as their baptized converts were free to join any church though
they seemed to maintain close connections with the Presbyterian
churches. She writes,
Despite their widespread activities none of their missionary
societies had any spectacular success with Jewish immigrants
to the New World. Indeed, their energetic proselytizing
galvanized community leaders again the missionaries,
irring them to counteract the missionary challenge. To that
end, they worked to build ronger community among the
immigrants by melding disparate Jewish groups together.
42
As mentioned, Eber held academic prejudices towards Jewish
believers in Jesus and missions to the Jews. This perspective
kept Eber from fully appreciating the life, motivation, and
accomplishments of the Jewish bishop.
40 Ibid, 45–46.
41 Ibid.
42 Ibid, 47. Eber draws these conclusions from Jonathan Sarna, “The American
Jewish Response to Nineteenth-Century Chriian Missions,” The Journal of
American Hiory 68, no. 1 (June 1981): 49.
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According to his daughter, in the spring of 1855, while
celebrating the Passover with believers, Schereschewsky nally
committed himself to Chri. An observer wrote, “At la he rose,
and in a voice ied with emotion, said, ‘I can no longer deny
my Lord. I will follow Him without the camp [a reference to
Hebrews 13:13].’”
43
SEMINARY TRAINING
AND CALL TO CHINA
Schereshewsky began his Chriian theological training at the
Presbyterian Seminary in Pittsburgh. For several reasons, he
did not nd the training to be valuable and was not a committed
Presbyterian. He transferred to General Theological Seminary, an
Episcopal seminary New York City. He already had a missionary
burden for China and was hoping this move would enable him
to receive an appointment as a missionary to China in order to
translate the Bible, which he believed was God’s call on his life.
MINISTRY IN CHINA
Schereschewsky arrived in Shanghai on December 21, 1859,
was ordained into the Anglican priehood on October 28, 1860,
and served in Beijing from 1862 until 1875 as part of the Beijing
Translation Committee. He was the primary translator for the
Psalms and eventually the Book of Common Prayer.
He completed the translation of the Hebrew Bible into
Mandarin in 1874. In the preface to the translation, he wrote the
following, which sums up his life’s chief work:
43 Muller, 32.
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109Mitch Glaser
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This book is the holy scripture. The holy scripture was
revealed by God, so that men will know the true way. Should
men desire to examine the rules of life and death, heavenly
Juice, the diinction between body and soul after death as
such man may attain the heavenly kingdom, separating from
hell, and giving them a method for saving their souls.
44
He returned to the United States in 1875 and eventually accepted
a call to be the Bishop of Shanghai and was consecrated at Grace
Church, in Greenwich Village on October 31, 1877. He returned
to Shanghai and founded St. John’s College in 1879. He served
as Bishop of Shanghai until 1883, when he resigned for health
reasons and returned to the United States.
According to one biographer the details of the illness are as
follows,
During 1879, Schereshewsky translated the whole Prayer
Book into Wen-li, or classic yle. Later that year, he went
up the river to Wuchang, and began the translation of the
Apocrypha. He had only completed one book when he was
smitten down during the intense heat of the summer of 1881,
and his physicians ordered his removal to Europe. He left
for Geneva, Switzerland in 1882 and resigned his Bishopric
in 1883 when it became evident that his treatment would be
protracted.
45
Twelve years later he returned to China although, according
to Marshall Broomhall, a hiorian of the Chinese church, he
became “paralyzed in every limb, and with his powers of speech
partly gone, sitting for nearly twenty-ve years in the same chair,
slowly and painfully typing out with two ngers his Mandarin
44 “Preface,” The Old Teament in Mandarin (Peking: American Bible
Society, 1875), P1.
45
“Dr. Joseph Schereschewsky,” Messianic Good News, October 5, 2012,
http://www.messianicgoodnews.org/dr-joseph-schereschewsky/.
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translation of the Old Teament and Easy Wen-li translation of
the whole Bible”
46
He did complete a new translation of the Hebrew Bible into
Mandarin and a new translation of the New Teament into
Mandarin in 1899.
SCHERESCHEWSKY,
HIS JEWISH IDENTITY
AND TRIP TO KAIFENG
Early in his career, Schereschewsky traveled to the traditional
Jewish area within China. Kaifeng was one of the early capitals
of China and would today be considered a third-level city in
China. I had an opportunity to visit Kaifeng,
47
meet some of the
current Jewish community living in this area and visit a museum
dedicated to the hiory of the Chinese Jews. Schereschewsky
was teed by his miniry in Kaifeng. He traveled there
expecting to be able to minier to the Chinese Jews, perhaps
exploring the more direct missionary side of his responsibilities
as a bishop. Or perhaps it was more than this, and he was trying
to do something spiritual for his own people?
However, he found very few Chinese Jews living there, and
secondly, did not nd them to be open to the gospel message.
This frurated the bishop but also rearmed his call not to be
a direct missionary, but rather a Bible translator as his way of
helping the Chinese people.
Schereschewsky was able to accept his spiritual gifts and
46 Marshall Broomhall, ed. The Chinese Empire: A General and Missionary
Survey (London: Morgan and Scott, 1907), 442.
47
Madison Jackson, “The Jews of Kaifeng: China’s Native Jewish
Community,” My Jewish Learning, accessed January 26, 2023, https://www.
myjewishlearning.com/article/the-jews-of-kaifeng-chinas-only-native-jewish-
community/.
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111Mitch Glaser
The Jewish Bishop and the Chinese Bible
nature, recognizing that he had quite a bit to contribute to
God’s work on earth, but it would not be in the form of direct
missionary work. There is no doubt the bishop loved his own
Jewish people. It was not a lack of love that kept him from
continuing to minier in Kaifeng, but rather his sense of duty
and calling, and keen ability to focus on his task of translation.
Eber explores Schereschewsky’s Jewish identity in chapter
seven of her biography. She notes Schereschewsky attempted
to integrate his identity as both a Jew and a Chriian.
He never denied his Jewish antecedents. Nor was he allowed
to forget them. Lydia Fey in Shanghai [one of his fellow
missionaries in China] called him a Polish Russian Jew. . .
. A visitor in Cambridge described him as “the mo Jewish
appearing man.” But, aside from Lydia Faye (who gave the
word, “Jew” pejorative implications), and especially in the
early years of the mission, Schereschewsky was apparently
accepted precisely for who he was: a devout Chriian of
Jewish background.
48
Eber further explores,
That Schereschewsky never saw himself as anything but a
Chriian in adulthood is beyond doubt. But even if a Jew
cannot reconcile Jesus Chri, the son of God and Messiah,
with Judaism—something Schereschewsky clearly knew—
he nonetheless succeeded in integrating his Jewish pa
with his Chriian present. Both parts of his life, one so
dierent from the other, became necessary ingredients of
who he was.
The decision to convert and accept baptism is revealing. We
can safely dismiss the suggeion that Schereschewsky sold
out to buy in. . . . In New York, if not earlier, Schereschewsky
had found a group of like-minded man, Hebrew Chriians,
among whom baptism was not a prerequisite for acceptance.
48 Eber, The Jewish Bishop, 242.
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Nor did abject poverty drive him to baptism. He had friends,
and he had a trade, such as it was.
49
His daughter Carolyn suggeed that her father had a life-
changing spiritual experience. Carolyn wrote, in Breslau “one
day he entered a Cathedral, and a light shown upon the crucix
on the altar, a thrill passed through him.”
50
Eber claims that Carolyn never refers to this event again.
Eber does not seem to recognize any type of spiritual experience
of the bishop.
Schereschewsky’s decision to become a baptized Jew had
apparently germinated for several years until what was
probably a somewhat emotional Passover seder at a gathering
of his Hebrew Chriian friends in April 1855. . . . it was
also signicant that, when he was in London for the [Global
Anglican] Lambeth conference of 1878, he attended services
of the London Society, then at Paleine Place [in London],
where prayers were read in Hebrew. Was it that he needed to
hear the prayers in the familiar language?
51
Eber takes the discussion one ep further and reects her own
secular and quasi-religious Jewish perspective,
According to Jewish law (halakha) Schereschewsky was an
apoate (mumar). A Jew who accepts Chriianity . . . is seen
in Jewish eyes as an apoate in the fulle sense. He loses
certain legal rights under Jewish law and the rules of mourning
are not observed upon his death. Although popularly such a
person was regarded as “dead”, halakhic opinion throughout
the ages has maintained that an apoate remains a Jew.
Indeed, . . . it is technically impossible for a Jew (born to a
Jewish mother or properly converted to Judaism) to change
his religion. In terms of halakha, the apoate is a sinner, but
49 Ibid, 243.
50 Ibid.
51 Ibid.
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113Mitch Glaser
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he is a Jewish sinner. The basis for this halakhic reasoning is
Deuteronomy 29:13–14: God made His covenant with Israel
then and for all times; with this and all later generations.
Schereschewsky was surely aware that by converting he did not
cease to be a Jew. Thus, when he presumably uttered on that
fateful April 1855 eve, “I will follow Him without the camp,” he
was not saying “I renounce being a Jew.” His self-perception ...
was fortuitously reinforced by missionary colleagues in Peking
who charged him with translating the Old Teament. He fully
accepted their dictum as his own when he wrote in 1864, “. . .
I ought to regard it as my special call in this country until this
work is done, and . . . with the assiance of God I . . . shall have
contributed a great share toward the missionary cause in China.”
52
ILLNESS, PARTIAL RECOVERY,
AND COMPLETION OF HIS WORK
It is important to underand the spiritual impetus and drive
the bishop had for his translation, particularly the update of his
translation of the Hebrew Bible into Chinese. He produced this
work through great hardship and sacrice, as he was suering
from what seems to have been an ALS-like disease of his nervous
syem that infected him for twenty-ve years and seemed to be
the result of severe sunroke.
The summer heat in Shanghai was almo intolerable for him,
to the point that Mary wrote in 1879, “We have grave doubts
whether, with a conitution impaired by long residence in China,
he will be able to and the Shanghai climate.” He also suered
from frequent diarrhea.
53
52 Ibid, 243–244.
53 Muller, 142.
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The summer of 1881 brought prolonged and intense heat that
further sapped his energy. The shack in which he spent hours
translating was like an oven. These and other cares occasioned
conant worry and anxiety, leading to a visible decrease in
energy and health. Finally, overcome by heat exhauion and a
high fever, he suered from a lesion in his brain that forced the
physicians to order him to leave China, le he not survive. His
colleague Dr. Boone said that there was “no indication that he
will recover full power of mind or body or be capable of any
suained mental eort.” His career as a missionary seemed to
have ended abruptly.
54
On the advice of their doctors, in March 1882, the
Schereschewskys went to Geneva, Switzerland, for treatment.
After four years, he was ill paralyzed in his legs and arms and
could speak only with diculty. For the re of his life, he had
to be carried up and down airs and could travel only in a three-
wheeled chair pedaled by someone else. His mental powers,
which had never suered damage, were as keen as ever, and
he had regained his nervous energy. The disparity between his
physical incapacity and his mental and nervous vitality caused
him considerable suering. Still, his wife Mary said,
He accepts everything with his usual lovely patience and
tranquility, which is a perpetual support and comfort to me.
This has been our Heavenly Father’s special gift to him, and
had it been otherwise I hardly know how we could have
met and suained the many trials that have arisen from his
illness.
55
That he held his ylus in his mouth to write the Chinese letters
for his Old Teament translation update is corroborated as are
many of the other ories about his exemplary life.
54 Muller, 175.
55 Muller, 185-186.
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115Mitch Glaser
The Jewish Bishop and the Chinese Bible
RETURN
TO CHINA
Finally, after thirteen years, he was given permission to return
to China. Almo as soon as the Schereschewskys returned to
Shanghai in 1895, he resumed his translation work, assied by
three Chinese, including one woman who knew English.
56
The 1890 General Missionary Conference decided to
sponsor a Union version of the Chinese Bible. He didn’t think
that a new Mandarin version was needed, and he knew that
a Union version would take many years to complete, so he
worked on the revision of his Mandarin version and on the Easy
Wenli.
The revised Mandarin Old Teament was ready for
publication in December 1896. It would be printed in Japan,
so The American Bible Society, who sponsored the Bible,
recommended that Schereschewsky move to Japan and oversee
the printing of the Bible. He and Mary left Shanghai for Japan
in December 1897. Both benetted greatly from the more
temperate climate of Tokyo.
The Schereschewskys spent the next ten years in Tokyo
where he oversaw the printing of the new Mandarin Old
Teament in 1899 and the Wenli Bible in 1902 (Classical
Chinese, also known as literary Chinese).
The Jewish bishop died on October 15, 1906, and his wife
Mary passed into the presence of the Lord on Augu 20, 1909.
56 Muller, 223-224.
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CONCLUSION
Value of the Book for Messianic Jewish Hiory,
OT Translation, and Chinese Missions
Dr. Irene Eber’s book on the life of Bishop Schereschewsky
is extremely valuable in several areas: for Messianic Jewish
mission hiory, missions to China, and of course, translation
of the Hebrew Bible into Chinese and other languages. I highly
recommend this book as Eber is a careful scholar. I would only
add the caveat that she did not share or even underand the faith
of the bishop. This is a profound, weak point in her biography.
On the other hand, because of her underanding of translation
and the Hebrew Bible as literature, her comments on this very
signicant area of the bishop’s work are excellent.
In Hebrews 11–12, the author lis some of the great Jewish
faith heroes of the Hebrew Scriptures. These faithful men
and women who followed their God with sacricial service
now reside in the presence of God and form a “great cloud of
witnesses.” They provide an example to us in how to walk by
faith, endure hardship by faith and even to die in faith knowing
the promises of God will one day gloriously be fullled, when
we will hear the voice of the Lord Jesus saying, “well done good
and faithful servant” (Mathew 25:23).
Bishop Schereschewsky should be included in this li of
heroes of the faith. His dedication and faithfulness to the Bible,
the Chinese people, and the task of translation echoes through
the ages, serving as a modern-day example of seless and
sacricial service to the Jewish Messiah. At the end of his life,
the bishop was plagued by a myerious neurological disease,
which did not allow him to write with his hand or utilize his
primitive typewriter. Still, he continued in his task completing
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117Mitch Glaser
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his update of the Mandarin Bible by placing the ylus between
his teeth and writing out the Mandarin words he cherished and
believed were spoken by the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
through Jewish authors.
Perhaps this is why his life and work became the subject of
many dierent books and chapters within volumes penned by
both Chriian missiologis and hiorians of Bible translation
and the Messianic Jewish movement over the course of the la
century.
Scherschewsky’s Mandarin and Easy Wenli Bible were in high
demand for more than ten years, until they were superseded by the
Union Version of the Chinese Bible in 1919. His Mandarin Old
Teament was the basis of that version and a Wenli translation.
Since he worked from the Hebrew Masoretic text, that text is the
one from which the Union Version Old Teament was translated.
Years later, several qualied scholars believed that his Old
Teament was superior to the Union Version. Schereschewsky’s
laing legacy was his translations of the Bible and example of
sacricial, even heroic, service for the Lord despite enormous
obacles and incapacitating illness.
Contributions to Translation
Eber does an excellent job summarizing some of the basic issues
related to the translation of the Old Teament from Hebrew
into Chinese, including the issue of the terms used for God and
whether a literary or non-literal translation was be. The latter
was especially important as the bishop’s translation was a single-
author translation rather than a committee-led one. Eber does an
excellent job summarizing Schereschewsky’s contributions to
Bible translation in general, especially the Chinese translation of
the Hebrew Bible.
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For example, the “term queion” raged at this time in
hiory—that is, how to translate the name of God into Chinese.
The bishop objected to Shang Di, “which, as the name of the
chief deity in the Chinese pantheon was . . . no more appropriate
for the Chriian God than Jupiter or Baal. He had less objection
to Shen, but favored Tian Zhu (Ti’en Chu), which had long been
used by the Roman Catholics.”
57
The Anglican church chose to honor the bishop on the Day
of Penteco, and the collect (prayer) for that day is well worth
noting:
O God, who in your providence called Joseph Schereschewsky
to the miniry of this church and gave him the gifts and the
perseverance to translate the Holy Scriptures: Inspire us,
by his example and prayers, to commit our talents to your
service, condent that you uphold those whom you call;
through Jesus Chri our Lord, who lives and reigns with you
and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
58
✧ ✧ ✧
57 Muller, 67.
58 “The Lessons Appointed for Use on the Fea of Samuel Isaac Joseph
Schereschewsky,” Lectionary Page, accessed January 30, 2023, https://www.
lectionarypage.net/LesserFF/Oct/Scheres.html.
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119Mitch Glaser
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A SELECTION OF OTHER WORKS
BY OR IN HONOR OF DR. IRENE EBER
Raoul David Findeisen (author), Gad C. Isay, Amira Katz-Goehr,
Yuri Pines, Lihi Yariv-Laor (eds), At Home in Many
Worlds: Reading, Writing and Translating from Chinese and
Jewish Cultures: Essays in Honor of Irene Eber. Wiesbaden,
Germany: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2009.
Eber, Irene. Chinese and Jews: Encounters between Cultures.
London: Vallentine Mitchell,2008.
———. Chinese Biblical Anthropology: Persons and Ideas in the
Old Testament and in Modern. Chinese Literature. Eugene,
OR: Pickwick Publications 2019.
———. Jewish Refugees in Shanghai 1933-1947: a Selection of
Documents. Göttingen. Germany: Vandenhoeck &
Ruprecht,2018.
———. “Reception of Old Testament Ideas in 19th Century China.”
Journal of Chinese Philosophy 45, no. 3–4 (September–
December 2018), 150–56.
———. Voices from Shanghai: Jewish Exiles in Wartime China.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008.
———. Wartime Shanghai and the Jewish Refugees from Central
Europe: Survival, Co-existence, and Identity in a Multi-
ethnic City. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2012.
OTHER WORKS ABOUT
S. I. J. SCHERESCHEWSKY
Haywood, Kate Harper. Torchbearers on the King’s Highway.
Milwaukee: Young Churchman Co., 1909.
Muller, James Arthur. Apostle of China, Samuel Isaac Joseph
Schereschewsky, 1831-1906. New York: Morehouse Pub.
Co., 1937.
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Shepherd, Massey Hamilton. Schereschewsky of China. New York:
National Council, 1962.
OTHER SOURCES
Anderson, Gerald H. Biographical Dictionary of Christian
Missions. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999.
Latourette, Kenneth Scott. A History of Christian Missions in
China. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2009.
Moreau, A. Scott, ed. Evangelical Dictionary of World Missions.
Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2000.
Muller, James Arthur. Apostle of China: Samuel Isaac Joseph
Schereschewsky 1831-1906. New Delhi, India: Facsimile
Publisher, 2015.
Peng, Cui’an. Unpublished dissertation on the history of the
translation of the Chinese Union Version.
Sunquist, Scott W., ed., Dictionary of Asian Christianity. Grand
Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001, 735–736.
Xu, Edward Yihua. “Liberal Arts Education in English and
Campus Culture at St. John’s University.” In Daniel H. Bays
and Ellen Widmer, eds., China’s Christian Colleges: Cross-
cultural Connections, 1900-1950. Stanford, CA: Stanford
University Press, 2009, 107–124.
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