ABSTRACT
The success of the Mandarin Union Version has been most noteworthy. Among readers of Wenli the Union Version has only slowly won favour as compared with the "Delegates' Version." After the Kuoyu Union Version had displaced the Wenli in China it was still called for by overseas Chinese, but recently the large orders for those fields have been almost entirely for the national language Scriptures. The Mandarin Union Version was recognized by many as a model for Mandarin Chinese; in fact, the Gospels were apparently even used in some governmental schools as a model for standard baihua. The missionaries of the early 20th century had learned from past experiences that the Union Version could not be the ultimate "authorized version" in Chinese. The earliest revision of the Union Version was attempted in the early 1920s by a group around Liu Tingfang, dean of the Theological School of Yanjing University, and J. L. Stuart, president of Yanjing University.
