Nearly one billion Mandarin language speakers now have a modern translation of the Bible! The Chinese Contemporary Bible (CCB) translation, completed in late 2010, is available online in PDF at Biblica.com. Mandarin (also called Putonghua or Standard Chinese) is the official language of China and Taiwan, and is also spoken in Singapore and elsewhere in eastern Asia.

The CCB is a huge development for the Christian church in China, which faces many challenges in the Communist nation’s rapid economic and cultural growth. The CCB was translated directly from the original Biblical languages, incorporating many changes to the Chinese language since the end of the Cultural Revolution decades ago. A print version is planned to coincide with the Chinese New Year in February.

You can read or download individual books from the CCB at Biblica’s website. The CCB isn’t currently available as a searchable text at Bible Gateway, although two versions of the older Chinese Union Version are fully searchable. You can access these translations through the Bible Gateway search drop-down or at the bottom of our Available Versions page.

Congratulations to Biblica on the release of this exciting new Bible translation—we hope and pray that it will be a powerful tool for Christ’s church in China.