Holy Confucius, Winter ed. (eBook)

European Translations of ‘Shengren’ in the Analects: The Chinese term 聖 sheng (simplified: 圣) appears eight times in six paragraphs in the Analects of Confucius (Lun Yu). I looked at all the major European translations between 1649 to 2009, and found major inconsistencies. The first Latin and French texts mentioned 'wise men'. The favorite English translations for 聖人shengren were 'the sages', followed by 'the philosophers' - which is not the same. However, the most astonishing anomaly is the widely accepted German translation 'the saints' (die Heiligen), followed by many more outliers such as 'the god-like', 'the holy sages', 'geniuses', 'cultural heroes', 'appointees' and so on. This could mean that the last word has not been spoken yet, and that the final term for shengren is still out there.