Museum of the Bible KoreaPermanent journey← Journey mapBefore foreign Protestant missionaries settled in Korea, Koreans were already reading, translating, carrying, and organizing around biblical texts.
The room’s claim
The arrival was not one date, one route, or one denomination. Catholic books entered through Korean scholars and lay networks; Protestant translation developed through Korean collaborators in Manchuria and Japan; colporteurs carried printed texts across borders; missionaries later entered a landscape where Scripture had already begun to circulate.
Before proceeding: ‘The Bible came to Korea’ can hide the people who chose to receive and carry it. This gallery names Korean translators, readers, women, merchants, and local communities wherever the surviving record allows—and marks where the archive remains silent.
Korean encounters with Catholic teaching began through books and intellectual exchange before a resident foreign priesthood. Lay believers formed communities, interpreted texts, and endured persecution. This history prevents a Protestant-only account of the Bible in Korea.
Beginning in the late 1870s, John Ross and John Macintyre worked with Korean translators including Lee Eung-chan (이응찬), Seo Sang-ryun (서상륜), Lee Seong-ha (이성하), and Baek Hong-jun (백홍준). Korean collaborators first rendered texts from a Chinese New Testament; the team compared and revised them with Greek and English editions.
Luke and John appeared in Korean in 1882–1883, and the complete Korean New Testament, 예수셩교젼셔, followed in 1887. Translation was already an act of Korean interpretation, not mechanical transfer.
Source note: Korean Bible Society: Korean Bible translations 한국어
In Japan, Korean scholar Lee Su-jeong (이수정) encountered a Chinese New Testament, became a Christian, and produced Gospel texts with Korean aids and then a Korean-script translation of Mark. Missionaries arriving in Korea in 1885 carried his Mark—another case in which a Korean prepared the way.
Source note: Korean Bible Society: Lee Su-jeong’s (이수정) 1885 Mark 한국어
Seo Sang-ryun (서상륜) carried Korean Gospel texts from Manchuria into Korea. By the time Henry G. Appenzeller and Horace G. Underwood arrived in 1885, biblical portions translated through the Manchurian and Japanese circles were already moving through Seoul and the northwest.
Source note: National Institute of Korean History: early distribution 한국어
Choosing Korean script expanded who could encounter the text beyond readers trained in classical Chinese. Yet access was never automatic: literacy, price, geography, gender, class, policing, and the work of distributors all shaped who actually heard.
How are they to hear without someone to proclaim him?
Romans 10:14 · ESV
Relationships behind the book
People chose to translate, revise, carry, open a door, and read. Their relationships turned an object into a living encounter.
Lee Eung-chan (이응찬) and the translation circle
John Ross did not simply translate alone and hand Koreans a finished book. Korean collaborators including Lee Eung-chan, Seo Sang-ryun, Lee Seong-ha, and Baek Hong-jun first rendered passages from a Chinese New Testament into Korean. The group then compared and revised the work with Greek and English editions. Translation happened through repeated listening: which Korean word could carry this meaning, and who would understand it?
The artifact records a relationship: knowledge crossed both ways between Korean speakers and foreign missionaries.Korean Bible Society — history of Korean Bible translation 한국어 ↗
Lee Su-jeong (이수정)
Lee Su-jeong arrived in Japan as part of a Korean diplomatic mission in 1882. A visit to the agricultural scholar Tsuda Sen led to his receiving a Chinese New Testament. He read it, became a Christian, was baptized in 1883, and began translation work. His 1885 Korean-script Mark crossed the sea in the hands of Henry G. Appenzeller and Horace G. Underwood when they entered Korea.
The usual direction is reversed: a Korean reader prepared Scripture for foreign missionaries to carry into Korea.Korean Bible Society — Lee Su-jeong’s 1885 Mark 한국어 ↗
Seo Sang-ryun (서상륜)
Seo Sang-ryun worked within the Manchurian translation circle and then carried Korean Gospel texts into Korea. A translation could remain on a table; a carrier placed it within routes of trade, kinship, conversation, danger, and trust. The surviving record remembers his name, while many readers and distributors who completed that movement remain less visible.
The book arrived through trust between people—someone translated, someone carried, someone opened a door, and someone read.National Institute of Korean History — early Bible distribution 한국어 ↗
Permanent timeline
Rather than choosing one simple ‘first,’ this timeline distinguishes biblical ideas, portions, New Testaments, and complete Bibles. Catholic and Protestant paths remain visible—and meet in 1977.
Korean scholars encountered biblical teaching through Chinese-language Catholic books. These were not yet a Korean Bible translation, but they formed an early path by which biblical narratives and vocabulary entered Korean reading communities.
Catholic communities circulated Korean manuscript texts combining Gospel readings for feast days with explanation. Under episcopal supervision, selected readings were revised and printed in nine volumes as 성경직해 between 1892 and 1897. The edition’s title used historical Korean spelling; this display modernizes it for legibility. It was a lectionary tradition—not a translation of the whole Bible.
The Manchurian translation circle of John Ross and John Macintyre worked with Korean collaborators including Lee Eung-chan (이응찬), Seo Sang-ryun (서상륜), Lee Seong-ha (이성하), and Baek Hong-jun (백홍준). Korean Gospel portions appeared before Protestant missionaries settled in Korea.
Lee Su-jeong (이수정) translated Mark in Korean script in Japan. Missionaries entering Korea carried his text, showing again that a Korean translator helped prepare the way.
The Ross translation circle completed 예수셩교젼셔. Its Korean script widened the possibility of reading beyond those educated in classical Chinese, although literacy, cost, geography, and distribution still shaped access. The title page and opening of Mark let visitors see both the book’s identity and the language encountered by its first readers.
The Bible Committee gathered its translated portions into a complete New Testament. It was an important achievement, but the committee treated it as an interim text requiring correction rather than the final authorized edition. Its cover, title page, and opening of Mark preserve this visible stage of revision.
After repeated correction of the 1900 text, the translation committee published the 1906 신약젼셔 as its first authorized Korean New Testament. Naming both editions reveals translation as sustained communal revision, not a single finished moment.
Commissioned under Bishop Gustave Mutel and translated by Korean Catholic clergy including Han Gi-geun, 사사성경 gathered all four Gospels in Korean. It served Catholic readers for decades, but it should be identified precisely as the Four Gospels rather than a complete New Testament or Bible.
The 1911 셩경젼셔 completed the first Korean Protestant translation of the whole Bible. The Old Testament was issued by the British and Foreign Bible Society and the New Testament by the American Bible Society. Its publication under colonial rule made the translated text both a religious book and a major body of Korean prose available to readers.
The 1938 셩경 개역 substantially revised the inherited translation, and the 1961 성경전서 개역한글판 aligned it with revised Korean orthography. The sequence shows that a Bible can remain culturally formative while its language continues to be corrected and renewed.
Korean scholars translated a new New Testament directly from source texts in contemporary spoken Korean. It marked a shift from repeatedly revising the inherited version toward a fresh translation for changing readers and public language.
Catholic and Protestant scholars produced the Common Translation in an ecumenical effort. It became the Catholic liturgical Bible until 2005 and remains a landmark where the two streams visibly meet.
표준새번역 appeared in 1993, 개역개정 in 1998, and the revised 새번역 in 2001. Different translation purposes—continuity, contemporary language, scholarship, and public reading—continued to shape Korean editions.
After seventeen years of work, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Korea published 성경 as the Catholic Church’s official Korean translation, translated from critical Hebrew, Greek, and Septuagint texts.
Object images and bibliographic details will be expanded as collection-level research continues.
Beyond the dates
A new edition is not merely the same meaning in different letters. It reshapes relationships among readers, language, worship, and authority.
Korean script widened the doorway beyond readers educated in classical Chinese, but literacy alone did not guarantee access. Price, place, gender, status, persecution, and distribution networks also determined whose hands held a text.
Terms for God, grace, justice, kingdom, and community are not empty containers. Translators make choices within Korean words that already carry histories of their own.
Lectionary reading, private reading, preaching, study, song, and memorization create different encounters with the same text. Literary or spoken style, honorifics, and sentence rhythm shape how Scripture is heard in public.
Translators, Korean-language scholars, churches, Bible institutions, and reading communities carry different responsibilities. ‘Authorized’ does not end the story: revision continues as language changes, scholarship deepens, and readers ask questions.
They read from the book, from the Law of God, clearly, and they gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.
Nehemiah 8:8 · ESV
People in this room
A name remains bilingual even when no cleared portrait is available. Established historical English forms are used here; significant alternate romanizations will be recorded in the future person record.
Korean translator in the Manchurian translation circle
1848–1926
Translator, colporteur, and carrier of Korean Gospel texts
Korean collaborator in the early Ross translation work
Translator, colporteur, and early Protestant leader
1842–1886
Korean scholar and translator of Mark in Japan
1842–1915
Scotland
Presbyterian missionary and translation partner in Manchuria
1837–1905
Scotland
Presbyterian missionary and translation partner in Manchuria
Portraits will be added only after reliable identification and image rights are confirmed.
The three recurring lenses
What was before the Bible?
What impact did the Bible have?
What is the Bible to you?
Whom does this Bible invite you to know—and how might its Word become lived in you and through you?