clergyman Missionary translator
Samuel was born on May 6, 1831 in Tauroggen, Russian Lithuania (now Tauragė, Lithuania), the son of Samuel and Rosa (Salvatha) Schereschewsky. His father was of the Ashkenazim and his mother of the Sephardim Jews. Both parents died when he was young and he was reared by a half-brother and his wife, who hoped to see him become a rabbi.
Schereschewsky was given a careful Jewish training at home, in his native town, and at the rabbinical schools in Krazi and Zitomir. He then spent some time in the University of Breslau. From 1855 to 1858 he studied in the Western Theological Seminary, a Presbyterian institution at Allegheny, Pa. He was a student from 1858 to 1859 in the General Theological Seminary, New York City.
In 1854 Schereschewsky went to the United States, where, in a Baptist church, he was immersed. Some time before completing his education he had formed the purpose of becoming a missionary and translating the Bible into Chinese.
He was ordained deacon in New York in July 1859, and that same year arrived in Shanghai as an appointee of the missionary society of his church. Here, October 28, 1860, he was ordained priest. He had begun the study of Chinese on his way out and continued it in Shanghai, making rapid progress.
From 1863 to 1875 he spent most of his time in Peking. While there he joined with another missionary in translating the (Anglican) Book of Common Prayer into Mandarin, the vernacular used by the majority of the Chinese, and with four other missionaries in translating the New Testament into that dialect; the latter translation was published in 1872. He himself translated the entire Old Testament into Mandarin (1865 - 73), and it was published in 1874.
In 1875, with his wife and two children, he returned to the United States for an extended furlough. While there he was elected to the Protestant Episcopal bishopric of Shanghai. After much hesitation and once declining, he accepted and on October 3, 1877, was consecrated. In 1878 he returned to Shanghai and worked on St. John's University.
In 1879 he translated the entire Prayer Book into classical Chinese. That year he moved to Wuchang, where, in 1881 was almost completely paralyzed. From 1882 to 1886 he was in Geneva, Switzerland, for medical care, and from 1886 to 1895 in the United States.
In 1883 he resigned his bishopric and seemed destined to spend the rest of his life in idle invalidism. In 1886, however, he resumed once more his work of translation. Aided by the devoted care of his wife, in the next few years he wrote out in romanized form a revision of his Mandarin version of the Old Testament. In 1895 he returned to Shanghai to have this translation put into Chinese characters and published. Because of its better facilities for printing, he went to Japan in 1897 and there, in Tokyo, spent the remainder of his days.
He also completed a reference Bible in both Mandarin and Wenli, and at the time of his death was at work on a translation of the Apocrypha. In collaboration with another missionary he had also translated the Gospel of Matthew into Mongolian and he had prepared, but never published, a handbook of Mandarin, a grammar and chrestomathy, and a dictionary of the Mongolian tongue.
Schereschewsky died on 15 October 1906.
Samuel Isaac Joseph Schereschewsky erected the first buildings of a college, St. John's (later St. John's University), which he organized and which became one of the leading institutions of higher education in China. He is famous for his translation of the New Testament and the Hebrew Bible into Mandarin, translation of the entire Bible into what is known as "easy Wenli, " a form of the Chinese classical style. Schereschewsky is honored with a feast day on the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church (USA) on 14 October.
Schereschewsky became convinced by his study of the New and Old Testaments that he should become a Christian. Studying at a Presbyterian institution at Allegheny, Pennsylvania, he joined the Protestant Episcopal Church.
Schereschewsky had a natural gift for languages. He was humble-minded, large-hearted, of marked intellectual as well as linguistic gifts, and an indefatigable and persistent worker.
He was weakened by overwork in the attempt to carry the duties of bishop, to conduct the local mission, and to continue his translating, in the result he was smitten with an illness which left him almost completely paralyzed and with impaired speech, but with quite unimpaired mind. He could write painfully by pressing the keys of a typewriter with one finger of one hand.
Quotes from others about the person
A contemporary called him "Probably the greatest Bible translator China ever had".
In 1868 Schereschewsky had married in Shanghai Susan M. Waring.
