Christianity and Biblical Translations in Japan

Abstract

This project provides an overview of the story Christianity and Bible translations in Japan by cataloguing and critically examining selected Japanese biblical translations. It begins with the Jesuit missions in the 16th and 17th centuries, continues to the 19th and 20th centuries up until the start of the Second World War, and closes with what the Bible has become in modern day Japan. The first chapter provides a historical summary of the events of the early history of the Bible in Japan. The second and third chapters examine the translations of the Bible made during the two periods that followed and chart the progress made in translating the Bible into Japanese.