A translation story with more than one beginning
The history of the Bible in Korea does not begin with a single foreign missionary stepping onto Korean soil. Catholic believers had already read and copied Korean religious texts, including translated Gospel material and devotional works. Later, one of the most important Protestant translation projects began outside the peninsula—in Manchuria—and depended on Korean speakers from its earliest stages.
That wider frame matters. It prevents the story from becoming a simple account of outsiders bringing a finished book to passive recipients. Korean readers, translators, distributors, teachers, and communities helped shape how Scripture entered the Korean language and how it traveled.
The Ross translation team
Scottish missionary John Ross began learning Korean after meeting Korean people in the border region during the 1870s. Translation work developed in Manchuria with John Macintyre and Korean collaborators including Lee Eung-chan, Seo Sang-ryun, Baek Hong-jun, Lee Seong-ha, Kim Jin-gi, and others. English spellings of their names vary among sources.
The working process was collaborative. Korean translators worked from available Chinese-language biblical texts into Korean. Ross and Macintyre then compared the Korean work with Greek and English editions and revised it with the team. Research published by the Korean Bible Society emphasizes the use of understandable Korean expressions, including spoken vocabulary and regional forms, rather than simply reproducing Chinese syntax.
In 1882, Korean editions of Luke and John were published in Manchuria. The complete Korean New Testament known as Yesu-Seonggyo-Jeonseo followed in 1887. The Korean Bible Society identifies it as the first New Testament translated and published in Korean.
A book crossing the border
Translation was only one part of the story. Printed portions had to be carried, read, discussed, and shared. Seo Sang-ryun is remembered for bringing Korean Gospel portions into Korea. Colporteurs and early believers later helped circulate biblical texts through personal networks and emerging communities.
This means portions of Protestant Scripture were being translated and carried into Korea before the arrival of Horace G. Underwood and Henry G. Appenzeller in 1885. Lee Su-jeong was also working on Korean biblical texts in Japan, and his Korean translation of Mark was carried by those incoming missionaries. The early history therefore includes several locations—Manchuria, Japan, and Korea—and more than one translation stream.
Language decisions were theological and cultural decisions
The translators did not merely replace one word with another. They had to decide how names, concepts, grammar, honorifics, and theological terms could be communicated in Korean. Some terms used in the Ross translation continued into later Protestant vocabulary; others were revised as translation committees and Korean usage changed.
Hwan-Jin Yi’s study of the Ross Version notes the team’s effort to use Korean words and expressions that ordinary Korean speakers could understand. The text also retained signs of the northwestern dialect and the circumstances in which it was produced. Those features remind readers that every translation comes from a particular community, place, and moment.
What this history allows us to say
The evidence supports several careful conclusions:
- Korean participation was central, not incidental, to the earliest Protestant Bible translation.
- Important Korean Scripture portions existed before resident Protestant mission work was formally established in Korea.
- Translation and distribution were transnational, involving Manchuria, Japan, Korea, Scottish and American Bible-society support, and Korean networks.
- The first translations were not the end of the process. Korean Scripture continued to be translated, revised, debated, printed, taught, and read in new settings.
It would be misleading to reduce this history to one heroic individual or one institution. The more compelling story is a network of people crossing linguistic, geographic, and cultural boundaries so that Korean readers could encounter the biblical text in their own language.