A Study on Chinese Translations of “God”: Exemplified by “tianzhu”(天主), “shangdi” (上帝) and “shen” (神)

Yixin Duan; Wenjing Su; Wanjing Zhang; Lingfan Ye; Yimin Yuan

doi:10.2991/978-2-38476-444-0_14

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A Study on Chinese Translations of “God”: Exemplified by “tianzhu”(天主), “shangdi” (上帝) and “shen” (神)

Authors

Yixin Duan¹, Wenjing Su², Wanjing Zhang¹, Lingfan Ye³, Yimin Yuan¹^{, *}

¹School of Foreign Languages, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, 611731, Sichuan Province, People’s Republic of China

²International Cooperation Office, Leshan Vocational and Technical College, Leshan, 614000, Sichuan Province, People’s Republic of China

³School of Automation Engineering, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, 611731, Sichuan Province, People’s Republic of China

^*Corresponding author. Email: yuanyimin@uestc.edu.cn

Corresponding Author

Yimin Yuan

Available Online 10 July 2025.

DOI: 10.2991/978-2-38476-444-0_14 How to use a DOI?
Keywords: Chinese translations of “God”; Chinese translation of the Bible; “tianzhu” (天主); “shangdi” (上帝); “shen” (神)
Abstract: The Chinese civilization has been bursting with vitality and vigor in the process of dialogue with other cultures, especially with the Western classic Bible. The “best” translation of the supreme master of Christianity is one of the core issues in the process of translating the Bible into Chinese. In this paper, we first review the process of translation of the classic Bible in China, and sort out the different Chinese translations of “God” in the “Chinese Rites Controversy” in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. The study identifies that the three most common translations are “tian zhu” (天主), “shang di” (上帝) and “shen” (神). Focusing on these various translations, this paper analyzes the connotations of aforementioned Chinese characters in the original texts from the perspective of linguistics and culture, and further discusses their impact on language, translation theory and culture.
Copyright: © 2025 The Author(s)
Open Access: Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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Volume Title: Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Language and Cultural Communication (ICLCC 2025)
Series: Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research
Publication Date: 10 July 2025
ISBN: 978-2-38476-444-0
ISSN: 2352-5398
DOI: 10.2991/978-2-38476-444-0_14 How to use a DOI?
Open Access: Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

Cite this article

ris enw bib

TY  - CONF
AU  - Yixin Duan
AU  - Wenjing Su
AU  - Wanjing Zhang
AU  - Lingfan Ye
AU  - Yimin Yuan
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/07/10
TI  - A Study on Chinese Translations of “God”: Exemplified by “tianzhu”(天主), “shangdi” (上帝) and “shen” (神)
BT  - Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Language and Cultural Communication (ICLCC 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 115
EP  - 126
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-444-0_14
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-444-0_14
ID  - Duan2025
ER  -

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