Well when I was in Japan I went to Toda and found a Japanese Bible. This Bible is great for my needs as a learner of Japanese (and it seems to be a pretty universally accepted version, since I’ve heard it quoted on numerous occasions), but it doesn’t really please me as far as translation goes.
Normally, I am a literal, word-for-word type of guy, but when it comes to a language like Japanese, this approach simply does not work. As much as we would not like to think so, the Bible does assume quite a bit of Western thinking. Certain portions of it can be read in context without explanation, and we just “get it,” since we Americans already know about things like “The Trinity,” “creation vs. evolution,” “Jesus Christ,” and the like.
Let us take, for example, the simple word, “God.” Here in the United States, the word usually causes to spring to mind, in the case of the more visually-oriented, images of a big (BERY big!), bearded, kind-looking old man, maybe sitting on a cloud. And with this image come all the associations from childhood stories and other religious ideographs we may have been exposed to. The point here is that even those westerners who don’t believe in the True God, have a pretty good idea from the outset what is meant by, “In the beginning, God created…” And so we can sort of follow.
Japanese culture makes even this most basic of Bible verses very convoluted and confusing (note that it is the cultural background which superimposes confusion on the text, and not a confusion which is inherent in the text itself.) To start with, the Japanese language doesn’t distinguish between plural and singular verbs. Therefore, this verse, if translated literally, leaves completely unsettled in the minds of readers the question of whether we are referring to a specific god or to many gods.
The version I picked up in Toda Books is just such a difficult-to-understand translation. Yes, it’s very “literal,” as far as I in my limited knowledge of Japanese can tell you; but that doesn’t do much good for the average reader if we need to get a scholar to give several pages of explanation for each verse. Perhaps such automated, Western-thought-laden, word-for-word (as opposed to thought-for-thought) translations of scripture is a large part of what has made Christianity so inaccessible to the Japanese mind.
Now I am not advocating a revamp of the Bible to make it “easier to understand”, as certain modern English translations claim to do. The fact is that these translations take liberties with the underlying teachings and truths of the Word of God under the guise of “readability.” What I’m advocating is a careful choice of Japanese words and phrases which may not exactly coincide with the original text, but will leave, in the minds of Japanese readers, exactly the same teachings and truths that the English versions of the Bible leave in our own minds. Ideally, this version of the Bible wouldn’t differ too much from what we would expect it to say; however, it might not be quite as easy to translate this version back and forth between Japanese and King James English.
Please bear with me because I’m excited to have found what I tentatively feel may meet the need, on the homepage of the International Bible society. Returning to the example of Genesis 1:1, the Bible I bought in Japan reads, “At the beginning/In the first place/to start with/for the first time,” in a way that, if I were Japanese, would leave me scratching my head. We can only hope and pray that the most (or least) they will take away from the completely ambiguous choice of words would be, “First,” as in a simple “first, next, then, after that” sequence, which doesn’t convey the idea we Americans get when we hear the words, The Beginning (as in, of All Time).
This other version (at http://www.ibs.org/bibles/japanese/pdf/ot/genesis.pdf) starts with what would translate literally into English as “In the time when there was still nothing.” True, these are not the exact words of the original translation. However, it places in the minds of Japanese readers PRECISELY the same idea as is placed in our minds by the words, “in the beginning,” including the sense that something momentous is about to occur.
The version I bought at the bookstore follows, “[some] god [or other, or maybe multiple gods],” whereas the IBS version continues, “Lord God,” (here “Lord” is a title, not a name referring to the Lord in question necessarily. However, attaching this title helps us to understand that “God,” in this sense, isn’t just a word, or a regular (not proper) noun used to describe a thing, but the Name of Someone. (This even comes close to saying, “Mr. God.”) This is exactly the same as giving the name of God a capital letter in English… and could very well be a Japanese’ first exposure to the idea of a Someone named God. This alone is enough food for a whole day’s-worth of thought.
The bookstore version continues, “caused to exist Earth [as in, the planet] and heaven.” Hm… not exactly the idea we get when we read Genesis. Although the Japanese does make it sound a little more personal than that (you see, something is lost here, even in the translation from Japanese to English) it doesn’t quite catch the essence of God as an active, hands-on builder-maker, a sculptor who commanded the universe into existence. It emphasizes the fact of the creation, rather than referring reverentially to the Creator. This translation even- subtly- leaves open the possibility that God simply had the world created. It could also mean, to a Japanese, that He simply determined that such a thing as the earth would exist. It fails to properly emphasize the important fact that it was God, Himself, who did the actual creating.
This description also sounds very text-book-like and difficult to understand. We have to read it two or three times even to misunderstand. It is grammatically correct, even without poetic license, but it’s difficult to follow.
Instead, the IBS says, simply, “made earth [as in, not sky or sea] and heaven.” To boot, the IBS version adds honorary inflections to the verb of making, to denote the admirable character and position of the Maker.
Now let’s see the word-for-word version:
“At first[/for the first time/to start with], god[s] caused to exist Planet Earth and the sky.”
and the thought-for-thought version:
“When there was still nothing, Lord God[, to His credit], made the earth and sky.”
(The “to His credit” part is very literally included, in an inflection of the Japanese verb, “to make,” but can’t be translated as an inflection, since we don’t have any such inflection in English. That’s why I added the words.)
The differences between the versions are, in the mind of an American reader, minimal (except that some of you are probably shouting, “Corruption of the text!”). To a Japanese, it is a difference between complete confusion and totally meaningless gibberish, and an earth-shattering truth (or outlandish fairy-tale), depending on how s/he chooses to receive it. And I’d much rather leave the reader choosing whether to believe than wondering what to believe.
To continue the argument, consider subtitles for a Japanese movie. If you saw one Japanese man hand a sack of money to the second Japanese man, (bear with me; this is relevant) and saw, in the subtitles, that the second man (the receiver) said, “I’m sorry,” you would wonder: “Why is he sorry? What did he do? Did I miss part of the story? Does the man pity his friend for having to part with his money? Is this some sort of Japense politeness? ” [Yes, by the way.]
This would immediately be followed, of course, with a “Nonono!” from the giver. Aha! So, something’s wrong, after all! Let’s rewind the tape and figure out why the receiver thinks he should apologize for receiving the money, and why the giver doesn’t think it’s such a big deal…. and so on.
But what if you knew that, in Japan, Japanese often say “I’m sorry/no” in exactly the same situation where Americans would say, “Thank you/you’re welcome”? Wouldn’t you think, “Well why didn’t the translator just translate that as, ‘Thank you/you’re welcome?’” You would be perfectly justified, too; after all, you want to watch a movie, and you shouldn’t have to take lessons in Japanese culture to understand what’s going on or what the characters are saying to each other.
In a similar way, I don’t think the Japanese should have to understand ancient Jewish and Greek culture (or, probably more accurately, American and Portuguese culture! Although I’m not entirely certain who did the initial work of translation), in order to read their Bibles. The Bible should be translated, as it always has been, into the common language of the people, not curtained behind in esoteric cultural references.
Yes, Westerners were involved in the earlier translations of the Bible into Japanese, and their limited knowledge of the language and culture may have severely damaged the ability of the Japanese to understand the teachings of Our Lord. But now there is an option, I’m excited to say! I think I’ve finally found a Japanese Bible that is a little better fit for popular consumption!