Description

The Japanese Translations of the Hebrew Bible: History, Inventory and Analysis, the first book of its kind in English, recounts the story of the translation of the Bible into Japanese, with particular focus on the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament). It includes a detailed inventory of both full and partial OT translations into Japanese, describing the history of their making and the identity of the translators. Numerous quotations from the various translations are compared with the Hebrew original and with other versions, and analyzed linguistically and theologically. The analysis exposes the ways in which translators sought to bridge the wide linguistic and cultural gaps between the Hebrew Bible and Japan, and the ways in which their translations reflect certain aspects of Japanese society and the place of the Bible in it.