Literary Representations of Christianity in Late Qing and Republican China

John T. P. Lai, PhD (2005), University of Oxford, is Associate Professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He has published three monographs, including Negotiating Religious Gaps: The Enterprise of Translating Christian Tracts by Protestant Missionaries in Nineteenth-Century China (2012).

• AcknowledgementsList of Illustrations1 Introduction: Literary Turn in the Study of Chinese Christianitybr/>2 Empire Re-mapped: Image of Britain in Karl Gützlaff’s Novels1 Westerners/British not “Barbarians”2 Trading, not “tribute paying”3 Britain: The “Supreme Nation”4 Britain upholding the orthodoxy5 Factors behind Gützlaff’s constructed British image3 Bible in Fiction: Chinese Protestant Novels of the Late Nineteenth Century1 Fictional Transformation of Biblical Biographies: Yuese jilüe (Brief Biography of Joseph, 1852)2 Harmonization and Contextualisation of Gospel Accounts: Zhengdao qimeng (Enlightening the Right Way, 1864)3 Displacement of Biblical Mythology: Qu mo zhuan (Story of Demon Banishing, 1895)4 Bible on Stage: Chinese Catholic Dramas of the Republican Period1 Moralistic and Religious Agenda of Chinese Catholic Literature2 Dramatizing the Biblical Narratives3 Edifying and Entertaining Dimensions of Two Joseph Dramas4 Drama Performance and Communal Transformation5 Saints Re-membered: Chinese Dramatization of Martyrdom1 Dramatizing the Martyrdom Stories2 Martyrdom Narratives of the Maccabees3 Resolving the Moral Conflict of Martyrdom6 Popular Reception: Chinese Folk Imagination of Christianity1 Heavenly Family in Hong Xiuquan’s Dream Vision2 Image of Jesus in Anti-Christian Pamphlets3 Journey to Hell in Chinese Catholic Novel4 Afterlife in Chinese Spiritual Songs5 Revelation of Jesus in Daoist Planchette Writings7 Poetic Inspiration: Biblical Imageries in Modern Chinese Poetry1 The Bible as Devotional Inspiration for Bing Xin2 The Bible as Ideological Inspiration for Zhou Zuoren3 The Bible as Archetypal Inspiration for Mu Dan8 Pilgrims Re-progressed: Christian Interpretation of The Journey to the West1 Mahayana Christianity and Buddhist Trinity1.1 Julai as Christ, the Incarnate God1.2 Kwanyin as the Holy Spirit2 Huen Chwang as Apostle Paul3 The Pilgrim’s Progress of Nestorianism4 “Multi-religious” Kingdom of God9 ConclusionBibliographyIndex

"The book’s greatest asset is its ability to draw on multiple fields to show the migration, translation, and reinterpretation of stories and images between China and the West. Lai’s deep knowledge of several fields, including biblical exegesis and interpretation, translation studies, Chinese folk religion, and more, are reflected in his analyses. (...) This is a valuable contribution to the field, both summarizing and enhancing the ongoing “literary turn” in the study of Christianity in modern China. The various chapters serve as compact case studies in translation and crossculturalinteraction and are useful for both research and teaching purposes." Steven Pieragastini, Loyola Marymount University, Journal of Jesuit Studies 6 (2019).