The Chinese Delegates’ Version, which was released in China in 1854, can be called “Classical Chinese Targum.” Most of all, this Wenli Bible freely quotes and rewrites from Chinese Classics, when translating the Hebrew Bible. Ecclesiastes 7:14 can be taken as one of the preeminent example of it: 福來可喜, 禍至可廬, 上帝使二者迭相倚伏, ?人不能逆料. The sentence can be read, “We can be joyous, when good fortune comes. We can be worried about, when bad fortune arrives.” Interestingly, the wordings and dicta of Ecclesiastes of the Delegates’ Version are so similar to that of Tao Te Ching. The Wang Pi’s Edition(王弼本) of Tao Te Ching(道德經) reads “禍兮福所倚, 福兮禍所伏, 孰能其極”(ch. 58), which means “Bad fortune is what good fortune leans on. Good fortune is what bad fortune hides in. Who knows the ultimate end of this process?” (John C. H. Wu) Both Delegates’ Version and Tao Te Ching share with each other the important terms like “福”(fu, 복), “禍”(huo, 화), “倚”(y?, 의) and “伏”(fu, 복). As such, when reading the Delegates’ Version, we might feel that we read Chinese Classics together due to their similar wordings and expressions.
Some of characteristics of the Aramaic Targum can be termed “addition,” “substitution,” and “rewriting,” according to Philip Alexander. (Anchor Bible Dictionary vol. 6, p. 329). The Chinese Delegates’ Version shows the similar features to Aramaic Targum. For example, the catch-phrase of the book of Qoheleth in the Wenli Bible can be “空之又空, 虛之又虛,” which occurs in 1:2 and 12:8, because it forms an inclusio within the whole book of Qoheleth. It can be literally read, “Empty and again empty. Vain and again vain,” or the like. This Chinese expression is quite close to that of Tao Te Ching in terms of its literary formation, when we read chapter one: 玄之又玄. (“Mystery and again mystery”). We can get to know that “空之又空, 虛之又虛” shows us addition, substitution and rewriting, when we read it in Hebrew originals.
The Masoretic text of Qoheleth reads in 1:2, “h?v?l h?v?lim ’?mar qohelet h?v?l h?v?lim hakol h?vel,” which literally means “The vanity of vanities, says Qoheleth, the vanity of vanities. Everything is vain.” This phrase is somewhat different from 12:8. There the second “the vanity of vanities” is omitted, but the Delegates’ version has the same expression in both verses. It seems likely that this kind of reading in the Wenli Bible presumably refers to rewriting in order to emphasize on inclusio as its literary structure within the whole book of Qoheleth. At the same times the wordings in both 1:2 and 12:8 follow the Classical Chinese expressions and rhymes as well.
Over all, the Chinese Delegates’ Version seems to faithfully follow the functional equivalence by Eugene A. Nida, even though it was issued 100 years before the coming out of his theory. From the perspectives of communication theory, it definitely successful in delivering the biblical message to the East Asian people of the literates in that far more than 70 reprints had been showed up in China up until the 1930’s.