Thursday, October 15, 2026

It is the 15th of October 2026. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

 

The 19th century was the great cradle for Protestant world Missions. China was an obvious center for missions work based on its size and history. You are likely familiar with some of the big names in early Chinese Protestant missions- Hudson Taylor, Lottie Moon, etc.

 

But there is one fascinating character, a bit tempestuous, constantly on the move, perhaps a little overlooked, and that might just be because writing out his name and trying to pronounce it can be daunting. He was Samuel Isaac Joseph Schereschewsky, a man whose translation of the Bible into Chinese is often remembered for one very specific reason… more on that in a minute.

 

Samuel Isaac Joseph Schereschewsky was born in May of 1831- born to Samuel and Rosa- he was an Ashkenazi and she a Sephardic Jew. They both died when Samuel was young, and he was raised by an older half-brother. From a young age, he wanted to be a rabbi. He studied Hebrew and Aramaic, as well as Russian, Polish, and Yiddish. Like most Rabbis in training, he was trained in a practical art- for him, it was as a glazier (a glassworker).

 

Samuel attended the rabbinical school in Zhytomyr (now in Ukraine), where he was given a copy of the New Testament in Hebrew. He did not become a Christian, but the early stirrings were present. In the early 1850s, he continued his education in Germany, where he would work as a tutor for Jewish families. All the while, however, he was wrestling with the Christian faith. In 1854 he emigrated to the United States, where he met a number of Jewish converts in and around Brooklyn. By 1855 he was convinced of the truth of the Christian faith and was baptized at his Baptist congregation.

 

We get a sense of the man and his eccentricities as he soon left the Baptist church for the Presbyterian church. He enrolled at Western Seminary in Pennsylvania. He then left the Seminary and decided to join the Episcopal Church. He entered the General Theological Seminary in New York until he heard a message from William Jones Boone- the Episcopal Missionary to China. Samuel asked to be sent there, and before he was ordained into the priesthood, he was off to China in 1859.

 

He spent the first five years of his time in China doing nothing but learning Mandarin- he traveled through the country and developed a sense of its customs and dialects. He contributed to interdenominational work on the Old Testament (a former Rabbi in training with excellent Chinese made him ideal)- one biography notes- ““By birth a Hebrew of the Hebrews, and running over with rabbinic lore, he had made himself a Chinese by adoption and by successful study. No man of that day equaled him in idiomatic command of the spoken Mandarin”

 

He would marry Susan Waring- also a missionary from Brooklyn.

 

His time in China was busy and often brought interpersonal problems. His daughter would write of him, he was “quick in all his apprehensions, quick tempered, of great energy of thought and physical expression…no diplomat… He was very nervous and energetic in all his movements, and spoke with great rapidity”

 

He would found St. John’s College in Shanghai- prior to the rise of the Chinese Communists, it was one of the most prestigious universities in China. It was to be, in his words, “a missionary college where modern science and Christianity would be taught along with the Chinese classics”.

 

He was also, against his will, made Bishop of China for the Episcopal church.

 

His son wrote of him, he “seldom slept more than six hours. He was quick-tempered and impatient with stupidity…He had immense powers of concentration”. And it was this concentration which allowed him, despite his work as an administrator, pastor, and bishop, to translate the Bible into Wenli- a simplified Chinese read across dialects. But this work took a toll on his body- by the 1880s he was struck with a degenerative neurological disease- perhaps Parkinson’s or something like it. But he spent his last years translating. The best-known story about him is that his bible was translated and typed out on a typewriter- but near the end of his life he was only able to use, at most, 2 fingers. It is said he typed out the last 2000 pages of his Chinese Bible- one of the most important translations in Chinese history- with those fingers and that typewriter.

 

Samuel Isaac Joseph Schereschewsky would die on this, the 15th of October in 1906- the Lithuanian Jew who immigrated to the US, became a Christian, and then revolutionized Chinese Christianity with his translation work. Schereschewsky was 75 years old.

 

The Last word for today comes from the daily lectionary and from Psalm 96 from the Seedbed psalter at psalms.seedbed.com:

O sing to the Lord, a new song now sing.

O sing to the Lord, all earth Your praise bring.


O sing to the Lord and give praise to His name,

And day after day His salvation proclaim.

Among nations all His glory declare,

His marvelous deeds to folk everywhere.


For great is the Lord and most worthy of praise;

He is to be feared above all gods always.

For all of the gods of nations are vain,

The Lord made the heav’ns, and o’er them does reign.


Before Him are splendor and great majesty,

Strength, glory are there in His sanc-tu-ar-y.

 

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 15th of October 2026 brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man also impatient with stupidity, but gracious with me nonetheless- he is Christopher Gillespie

The show is written and read by a man who says farewell, Harrison Mevis; we hardly knew ye… I’m Dan van Voorhis

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.