Walter Henry Medhurst (1796–1857) was sent by the London Missionary Society (英国伦敦传教士会) to China as a missionary printer. He first went to Batavia (巴达维亚) where he learned Chinese. Then, in 1842, at the end of the First Opium War (第一次鸦片战争, 1839–1842), he moved to Shanghai. The following year, he founded the London Missionary Society Press (墨海書館). He stayed in Shanghai for 12 years in total.

Throughout the 1840s, Medhurst was one of the four people who translated the Bible into Chinese. The translation of the New Testament was completed in 1850 and the Old Testament in 1853.

Medhurst also produced two volumes of Chinese-English dictionaries and two volumes of English-Chinese dictionaries.

Reverend George Smith (1815–1871) studied classics at Oxford University, where he received a Bachelor’s and Master's Degree; he was ordained as a priest of the Church of England in 1840.

He first travelled to Shanghai in 1844 and explored the possibility of establishing a mission in Victoria (维多利亚, Hong Kong).

In 1949, he was appointed the first bishop of Victoria. He arrived on location in March 1850 and stayed on this post until 1865.

Consul James Finn’s (1806–1872) small booklet, The Jews in China (中国的犹太移民), was published in 1843 and received backing from the London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews.

It reawakened Europe’s dormant interest in the Chinese Jews.

In October 1850, Bishop George Smith visited Reverend Walter Henry Medhurst who was part of the London Society in Shanghai. Aware that any European who ventured into the interior of China might not come back alive, Medhurst suggested sending Chinese converts to Kaifeng instead.

The two Delegates brought with them a letter in Hebrew, written by Isaac Faraj ben Reuben Jacob, a Sephardic merchant originally from Baghdad (巴格达) who was living in Shanghai at the time. He was an associate of the Jewish firm E.D. Sassoon & Co (沙遜洋行).

Faraj introduced himself in the letter as a co-religionist of Kaifeng Jews anda native of Baghdad; he noted that he went to Shanghai about five years ago for business. He greeted the Kaifeng Jews and asked many questions. Did they have a Torah scroll? Did they have all twenty-four books of the Hebrew scriptural canon? The Mishnah and the Zohar? What books did they use for teaching their young? From which of the Tribes of Israel did they descend? Were there any other Jewish settlements in China?

Faraj added that he was happy to send them any missing scriptures from their collection and that although he would love to visit them in person, the current political environment of China — where anti-foreign sentiment was pervasive — prevented that from happening.

On Monday, 9th December, at around 4:30 pm, the two Delegates entered the city of Kaifeng via its East Gate. The metropolis was bustling with merchants and scholars. The streets were not paved, and the rich travelled in mule carriages. Everything was enclosed in a fourteen-mile-long city wall.

The Kaifeng Jewish community consisted of seven clans with 200 people. This included shop owners, farmers, merchants, and more. Ironically, those who lived closest to the heart of the Kaifeng Jewish community — the synagogue — became the most destitute of the community.

Simchat Torah (the celebration of the Torah, the ninth day of the Feast of Tabernacles) was still being celebrated, though discipline was lax, and few were devout. Sabbath was still observed on Saturdays. Circumcision was no longer performed.

The congregation received two Hebrew letters from the West.

The Jews of London probably sent the first in 1815; it reached Kaifeng by the joint effort of Father Robert Morrison (马礼逊, 1782–1834) and a native travelling bookseller.

The second letter was from Consul James Finn (芬恩, 1806–1872), to which the Kaifeng Jews replied on 20th August 1850.

The kehillah was under the impression that both letters were sent by "a teacher of our religion."

While inside the synagogue, the Delegates saw that behind the Ming Dynasty Imperial Tablet was a hexagonal shrine with a beautifully painted interior. It enclosed twelve tubes, each painted and gilded, in a cylindrical form of about two feet in height. In these tubes were the Holy Scriptures, which the Delegates were allowed to inspect in great detail.

Before the shrine was an ornamental frame of about nine feet high and eight feet wide, the horizontal beam was painted green, and the vertical beam painted red. The front of the frame wrote in Hebrew: Blessed be the LORD, the God of gods, and the Lord of lords, the great, the mighty and the terrible God.

The Delegates’ visit was interrupted by Qiao.

Qiao ordered the Delegates to leave the premises at once. He alerted the Jews that the visitors from Shanghai were not Israelites at all but agents sent "by the English missionaries to examine our establishment." Qiao moreover stressed that the Delegates should not be allowed in the synagogue again.

Jiang Rong-ji wrote that Qiao was a Jew; Qiu Tian-sheng, however, merely mentioned he was a literary graduate, probably of the Bachelor’s Degree and made no comment about whether he was a Jew or not.

The Delegates also asked Zhao Jin-cheng to arrange for them to copy the text of 1489/1512 Inscription. Unfortunately, this was not an easy task as the entrances to the pavilion where the tablet was located were blocked by a pile of rubbish.

Jiang Rong-ji recorded in his diary that they had "succeeded in inducing one of the professors (of the Jewish religion), named Zhao, to effect an entrance through holes in the walls, and utilising candles, he obtained sufficient light to enable him to copy the whole, which was the work of several days."

After settling down in a new inn, on 14th December, the Delegates had lunch with Zhao Jin-cheng (赵金诚) and his younger brother Zhao Wen-kui (赵文魁). Afterwards, Zhao Wen-kui turned over “the key of the guest chapel of the Pure and True Synagogue” to Zhao Jin-cheng. They then took the Delegates to the synagogue, unlocked the door, selected eight small Hebrew manuscripts and sold them to the Delegates for an undisclosed amount. The Delegates then hurried back to their inn.

Possibly because they had to pay more than expected for the Books, the Delegates now had no money for the return trip. They sought out a friend of Jiang Rong-ji’s father, borrowed travel fare and booked tickets on a coal carrier vessel on the Yellow River, which was scheduled to depart the next day.

Once back at the mission house, the Delegates turned over eight manuscripts of Pentateuchal text, textual copies of the 1489/1512 Tablet, and few lines of Chinese horizontal and vertical plaques from the interior of the synagogue that Qiu Tian-sheng (邱天生) had succeeded in transcribing before he was stopped by Qiao (乔).

Six of the eight manuscripts were parashioth, section books of the Pentateuch. The other two were siddurim, prayer books. The language was antique Hebrew, with vowel points, writing was done by the stylus.

An early examination of the text, Bishop George Smith (施美夫, 1815–1871) remarked, “leads to the belief that they (Kaifeng Torah) will be found by western biblical scholars to be remarkable for their generally exact agreement with the received text of the Hebrew Old Testament.”

Qiu Tian-sheng’s (邱天生) journal entry was in English. Jiang Rong-ji’s (蒋荣基) journal was written in Chinese. Translation of his travelogue was done by the Reverend Joseph Edkins (1823–1905).

Reverend Edkins was a British Protestant missionary who specialised in Chinese religion and was a prolific writer and translator. He was ordained in 1847 and sent by the London Missionary Society (英国伦敦传教士会) to Shanghai in 1848. He was actively involved in direct evangelism, distributing Christian documents while travelling in China.

During the Taiping Rebellion, he reached out to the leaders of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom (太平天国), trying to understand their theology as they mixed Christianity with Chinese folklore beliefs.

Reverend Edkins spent 57 years in China, 30 of them in Beijing. In 1872, he worked with Reverend W.A.P. Martin (丁韙良, 1827–1916) in publishing The Peking Magazine (中西闻见录).

Content extracted from: Chinese Jews, William Charles White.

Introduction

By the Right Reverend George Smith, D.D., Bishop of Victoria

The subject of the Jews in China is one calculated to awaken peculiar interest in the mind of the Biblical critic, as well as the student of general literature. The small amount of certain knowledge respecting them in past times, and the long period which has elapsed without any addition being made to former accounts, have tended to excite in many a desire that some more definite and detailed information should be procured respecting this long-isolated and most unknown remnant of the Jewish race.

For the little previous knowledge which we possess respecting the Jews in China, we are almost exclusively indebted to the researches of the Roman Catholic missionaries in a former age. The work published by James Finn, Esq. in 1843, contains the principal previously-existing materials, which have been presented in a succinct and interesting form to European readers. It was at the commencement of the seventeenth century that the Jesuit missionary Ricci and his learned associates at Peking were suddenly made acquainted with the existence of a Jewish colony at K’ai-feng Fu, the capital of Honan Province. A Jewish scholar and expectant of civil promotion, a native of that city, temporarily resident of Peking, introduced himself to the missionaries, and announced himself of the same religion as the foreigners. Being led by Ricci to view the interior of the chapel, and the painting above the altar and around the sides of the building, he proceeded to bow before the various pictures, professing, however, to perform this unusual act only in imitation of his guide and conductor, and as a homage to the great ancestors of his race. It was only by means of a subsequent explanation that the mis-understanding was removed and the fact of the mutual distinctness of the two religions became clear to the mind of each.

The interesting information obtained from this Jewish visitor led Ricci three years afterwards to despatch a Chinese Christian to K’ai-feng Fu to test the accuracy of his statements. A copy of portions of the Pentateuch in Hebrew were brought back by the messenger. Other Israelites arrives in Peking, and interesting communications took place.

The poor Israelites, even then few in number, reduced in circumstances, and exposed to many trials, appeared ready to renounce their ancestral religion, and to transfer the control of their synagogue to the Jesuits. Others of the Roman Catholic missionaries subsequently visited the locality and sketched the general plan and appearance of the synagogue.

Although at the commencement of the eighteenth century a fuller account of the Jews at K’ai-feng Fu was received from Father Gozani, then resident on the spot, yet down to the present time but little additional light has been thrown on the subject of The Sect that Plucked the Sinews (挑筋教). The late Dr Morrison makes indeed a brief allusion to a rumour respecting them in his journal more than thirty years ago; and a Hebrew letter was actually written and despatched in the year 1815, by some Jews in London, to the Jewish community at K’ai-feng Fu. Whether it was ever received by them there are no means of certainly knowing.

Since the British Treaty of Nanjing in 1842, many Christians in Europe have directed their attention towards the Jews in China; and anticipations in some instances may have been cherished respecting their present condition and future destinies such as the incidents of the subjoined narrative will fail to gratify or confirm. A benevolent lady lately deceased, and well known for her deeds of pious munificence in the support of Christian missions, placed the necessary funds for carrying out such an inquiry at the disposal of the “London Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews.” It was at their request that the writer of these Introductory Remarks undertook to direct the general plan and management of the undertaking. The subject is thus noticed in the Society’s Annual Report for 1489.

Your Committee have gladly availed themselves of the opportunity offered by the establishment of the Bishopric of Victoria, Hong Kong, to make further inquiries respecting Jews in China, and the practicability of establishing a Mission in that country. There appear to be peculiar difficulties in the way of the immediate realization of their wishes in this respect, and their present efforts must be limited to a Mission of Inquiry, in which the Bishop has kindly promised his assistance. That munificent friend of Israel, Miss Cook, has placed in the hands of your Treasurer a sum sufficient to cover the amount of the expenses occasioned by the establishment of the Mission.

The writer on his arrival in China entered into correspondence with various foreign residents, both missionaries, and civilians, settled in the five consular cities of China, who were likely to feel an interest in the subject and able to furnish information towards its successful prosecution. A number of questions had been prepared and printed in England, principally by the Reverend Dr. Macaul, and these were sent round to the different consular ports in order to direct attention to certain specific points of inquiry. No intelligence whatever could be procured respecting even the existence of any native Jews in China at the present time. So far as we know not a single native Jew has ever been met with by any Protestant missionaries or other foreigners now resident in China. The Reverend Dr. Medhurst, of the London Missionary Society, was the first to give a practical turn to these inquiries. He involved in his mind a plan for despatching some trustworthy native messengers into those parts of the interior where Jews were formerly known to be. He laid his scheme before the writer during his subsequent visit to Shanghai in October 1850. The service of two Chinese Christians in the employment of the London Missionary Society, who appeared suitable and trustworthy agents, were made available for the mission. One of them, Ch’iu T’ien-sheng, whose journal is placed first and was written in English, was educated by Dr. Medhurst in his mission school at Batavia, and is now engaged as a printer in the mission at Shanghai. The other, Chiang Jung-chi, a somewhat older man, and a literary graduate of the fourth or lowest degree, had been for some years a teacher of Chinese to one of the missionaries at Shanghai. His journal was composed in Chinese and has been translated into English by the Reverend J. Edkins.

Three Jewish merchants also, from Baghdad, resident at Shanghai, and connected with the opulent Jewish firm of Sassoon & Co. at Canton, contributed valuable help; one of them having written a letter in Hebrew to their Jewish co-religionists at K’ai-feng Fu, for the purpose of introducing the two Chinese messengers, and inviting the Jews to visit Shanghai.

After receiving various cautionary suggestions and instructions as to their mode of proceeding, our two Chinese friends left Shanghai on November 15, 1850. They followed the route which had been previously laid down for them, by way of Soochow, and thence to Ch’ing-Chiang Fu, where they crossed the Yang-tzu Chiang. They pursued their course thence in boats as before along the Grand Canal to the point of its junction with the Yellow River. Here, after a slight detention, they renewed their journey in a rude cart, drawn by mules, along with southern bank of the Yellow River, arriving at K’ai-feng Fu on December 9, having travelled a distance of about seven hundred miles in a north-west direction from Shanghai.

The journals of our travellers will best convey, in their own simple truthful language, an idea of the state of the country and population through which they passed. The generally perceptible poverty and distress of the people in the vicinity of the Yellow River, the frequent signs of dilapidated dwellings, villages in ruins, and partial neglect of cultivation, may be taken as proof of the devastating effects from time to time produced by the overflowing of this vast central stream, and of the occasional desolation spread on either side of its embankments. But we must be cautious in admitting a too hasty conclusion that these appearances militate against the popular accounts of the higher degree of prosperity and civilization generally prevailing in other parts of the Chinese empire.

The diaries of our Chinese visitors will acquaint the reader with the general condition of the Jewish community at K’ai-feng Fu. After a tedious journey of twenty-five days, they at length enter the east gate (Ts’ao Men) of the city; and pursuing their course along the Great East-gate Street, in accordance with the information which they had lately acquired on the journey, they soon turned to the northwards, and at no great distance arrived at the site of the Jewish synagogue, facing to the eastward. Here, in the midst of a surrounding population, two-third of whom were professors of Mohammedanism, and close adjoining to a heathen temple dedicated to the “God of fire,” a few Jewish families, sunk in the lowest poverty and destitute, their religion scarcely more than a name, and yet sufficient to separate them from the multitude around, exposed to trial, reproach, and the pain of long-deferred hope, remained the unconscious depositaries of the oracles of God, and survived as the solitary witness of departed glory. Not a single individual could read the Hebrew books; they had been without a Rabbi for fifty years. The expectation of a Messiah seems to have been entirely lost. The rite of circumcision, which appears to have been observed at the period of their discovery by the Jesuits two centuries ago, had been totally discontinued. The worshippers within the synagogue faced towards the west; whether in the direction of Jerusalem no clear information was obtained. The synagogue itself was tottering in ruins; some of the ground had been alienated to pagan rites, and a portion of the fallen materials sold to the neighbouring heathen. Some time previously, they had petitioned the Chinese Emperor to have pity on their poverty, and to rebuild their temple. No reply had been received from Peking, but to this feeble hope they still hung. Out of the seventy family names or clans only seven now remained, numbering about two hundred individuals in all, dispersed over the neighbourhood. A few of them were shopkeepers in the city; others were agriculturists at some little distance from the suburbs; while a few families also lived in the temple precincts, almost destitute of raiment and shelter. According to present appearances, in the judgement of our native messengers, after a few years all traces of Judaism will probably have disappeared and this Jewish remnant have been amalgamated with and absorbed into surrounding Mohammedanism.

Although the messengers were afterwards suddenly interrupted in their researches within the synagogue, and their departure from the city itself was subsequently hastened by fear, they remained for a period sufficient to enable them to accomplish the main object of their visit. They copied many interesting inscriptions in Chinese, and a few in Hebrew, which are appended to their journals. They brought back also eight MSS of apparently considerable antiquity, containing portions of the Old Testament Scriptures, of which facsimiles are subjoined. These eight MSS are written on thick paper, bound in silk, and bear internal marks of foreign, probably Persian, origin. The writing appears to have been execute by means of a stylus, and to be in an antique Hebrew form, with vowel points. The cursory examination which we have been already enabled to bestow on them leads to the belief that they will be found by western biblical scholars to be remarkable for their generally exact agreement with the received text of the Hebrew Old Testament. Though in themselves interesting and valuable, they are probably much inferior in interest and value to the twelve rolls of vellum containing the Law, each 30 feet in length and 2 or 3 in breadth, which our messengers examined in the holiest of holies. Measures are already in progress for procuring these latter MSS, which would be a worthy addition to some one of our national institutions, and for bringing down to Shanghai any Israelites who might be induced to visit that city. The portions of the Old Testament Scriptures already received are the following: Exodus, chapters I to VI; Exodus, XXXVIII to XL; Leviticus, XIX and XX; Numbers, XIII to XV; Deuteronomy, XI to XVI; and Deuteronomy, XXXII; various portions of the Pentateuch, Psalms and Hagiographa, which appear to be parts of an ancient Hebrew Liturgy, are contained in two of the MSS already received.

The temple of synagogue at K’ai-feng Fu is said to have been built about A.D. 1190; but the Jews themselves assert that their race entered China as early as the period of the Han Dynasty, which could correspond with some time about the Christian era.

A friendly feeling was generally evinced by them towards our visitors; which is in no small measure attributable to the Hebrew letter of introduction from Shanghai, of which although the Jews understood not the purport, they readily perceived its identity with their own sacred writings.

Without such an introduction they would probably have been received with suspicion and distrusted as spies. Our visitors learnt that during the year 1849 the whole of the little Jewish community at K’ai-feng Fu were thrown into great alarm and exposed to danger of persecution on account of suspected connection with foreigners, by a letter written in Chinese and despatched some time before by the late Temple Layton, Esq., H.B.M. Consul at Amoy, for the purpose of procuring some Hebrew MSS.

It remains for the writer of this preface, in conclusion, to express how great are the obligation under which, only only he himself, but also the London Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews, must feel themselves laid by the valuable labour and research of the Reverend Dr. Medhurst, and the well-performed services of the two native Christian Agents of the London Missionary Society. To them belongs the entire merit of furnishing the contents of the little volume which is now presented to the Christian public.

Our best thanks are also due to the Reverend John Hobson, British Chaplain at Shanghai, and the Reverend W. Muirhead of the London Missionary Society, for their kind services and assistance in comparing and copying and work of the Chinese block-cutters, with the original Hebrew MSS, during its progress through the press.

Hongkong, May, 1851.

The two Delegates left Shanghai for their second trip to Kaifeng. They were given enough money to purchase from the Jews their most precious Torah Scrolls.

The entire trip took exactly two months. The Delegates spent two weeks in Kaifeng sourcing the manuscripts, the rest on the road.

The two Delegates returned to Shanghai from their second trip to Kaifeng. In total, they spent 400 taels of silver, roughly 114 GBP at the time, on all the manuscripts acquired.

Unlike over a century ago when the Jesuit Fathers visited, the Kaifeng Jews refused to part with their most treasured possessions no matter what price was offered. As Father Jean Domenge (孟正气, 1666–1735) wrote to Father Etienne Souciet (1671–1744) in 1722, to kehillah, selling a Bible to "a European who eats the black beast (pig)" was "the same thing as to sell the Lord."

Perhaps the Jews sold their Scriptures because no one in the community could read Hebrew anymore, and thus these books were of no value to them, or maybe because they needed the money for sustenance; regardless, to the Delegates and the London Society for Promoting Christianity Among the Jews, this was a most fruitful trip.

The Delegates brought back 57 Square Scriptures, which were section books of the Pentateuch. These booklets were each about seven inches by seven and a half inches in size, written on thick and pliable paper that was made of thin paper pressed together when damp. The front surface of each leaf was lined, probably with a wooden stylus, to make nine horizontal sections for the writing, each line serving as an upper limit for the letters; the reverse side was not lined.

Of the 53 sections of the Law, 33 were contained in this batch; eight sections had duplicates.

The Chinese-Hebrew Memorial Book of the Dead, a genealogical register of the community that the Delegates brought back, was the only manuscript from the synagogue that contained Chinese writing; all the others had only Hebrew with Persian and Arabic interpolations.

The Codex had 106 pages and was roughly square in shape, 152mm x 140mm, which was a little smaller than Square Scriptures. Each page was made of several thin sheets glued together. It is bound with a cover of canvas material for protection, but there is clear evidence of age, wear, and water stain.

Of the 106 pages, nine were blank, twenty-five composed of prayers and scriptural quotations in Hebrew and Aramaic. The other 72 had lists of names in the form of a genealogical register (家谱), written in a combination of Chinese and Hebrew script. This last portion was divided into two parts, one for the men and the other for the Women.

The first name of 453 men — all part of the seven clans of Ai (艾), Li (李), Zhang (张), Gao (高), Zhao (赵), Jin (金) and Shi (石) — were mentioned. The Li Clan was the largest, with 109 individuals; this was followed by the Gao Clan, with 76; the Zhao Clan, with 74; the Zhang Clan, with 73; the Ai Clan, with 56; the Jin Clan, with 42; and the Shi Clan, with 23.

The section dedicated to women had a total of 259 names. In most cases, only the woman’s family name was mentioned. Many of these women came from Muslim or Chinese families. This confirms what the Jesuits earlier had reported, that while the Jews did not allow their daughters to be married outside of their religion, their men often married Gentile wives.

Each of these sections ended with a prayer in Hebrew.

The names and number of children were not provided.

The total number of individuals listed was 712. If assuming several hundred children, it was easy to conclude that at least more than a thousand people died between c. 1400 and c. 1670.

This memorial Book was drawn up roughly between the years 1660 and 1670.

Surprisingly, the Chinese characters in the book were not written with a Chinese writing brush; instead, it was most likely written with a bamboo stylus dipped in ink. Moreover, the characters were crudely written and seemed to have been written by inexperienced scribes.

According to the Delegates, 300 Jews assembled and agreed to sell the entire set of manuscripts for 400 taels of silver. The Scriptures were then transported "in open day" from the synagogue to the Delegates' inn.

However, some suspect that the story was modified to avoid impropriety being held against the London Society. The first thing to note was the unconventional tactics used to acquire the first instalment of books. Although there was no direct linkage to the second purchase, it showed the means by which the Delegates would take to achieve their goals.

The possibility of gathering 300 Jews together so quickly is also somewhat unlikely — less than six months before when the Delegates visited Kaifeng, the estimated number of Jews in the city was about 200. The population was also supposedly scattered all around the town.

Since it was stressed that 300 Jewish witnesses were there when the Torah Scrolls exchanged hands, the implication is that the Books were sold with the blessing of the entire kehillah. Did Qiao (乔), who had kicked the Delegates out of the synagogue because he had heard they were agents of English missionaries and were not to be trusted, give his consent? What about Zhao Nian-zu (赵念祖), who penned a reply to "the Chief Teacher of the Jewish religion," seeking assistance from the international Jewish community to resuscitate their religion, also agree to the transaction? More likely than not, many in the congregation would have raised their voice against the disposal of their Holy Books.

Many questions were raised. Was the sale made by a small group of people rather than the entire community? Was it possible that the Zhao brothers were the leaders of this small group and pocked all of the 400 taels of silver? Was it possible that the Zhao brothers accompanied the Delegates to Shanghai because they were under suspicion by the kehillah?

In fact, charges that the Delegates had cheated the kehillah out of its manuscripts would later be made by the Kaifeng Jews themselves. In 1867 when Jacob. L. Liebermann (利伯曼) visited Kaifeng, the Jews complained to him that they “used to have several (Torah) Scrolls, but foreigners who came here, and of whom we did not know whether they were Israelites or not, took them from us. But when they once had possession of them, they kept them.” Was it possible that the Delegates were part of this group? That being said, the Manla of a Muslim mosque told Liebermann the Scrolls were purchased from the Jews legitimately. Regardless, the arrival of six Rolls of the Law in the hands of the West put the century-long debate on the second coming to an end.