Can you read Japanese kanji? What does this say?

Not a reader, but the last two characters in the left column (title page) match the two large characters on this other Japanese Bible. Most Bibles have “Holy Bible” printed on the cover; I would therefore infer that those characters are to the same effect.

Google Translate might be able to help you. I used it for some song lyrics a few weeks ago and the given translations were pretty accurate.

I don’t speak Japanese, a lot of the characters on those pages are in traditional Chinese. I basically get what it’s saying, but Japanese has different meanings for some of the characters. The title page basically says:

Old and New Testaments
published by the Japanese Bible Association

The characters in the box on the publication page say “Copying not permitted.”

I’ll leave the rest to someone who actually speaks Japanese.

Hi @prioritymail

Without digging out my dictionaries – I can tell you this is a very old Japanese Bible.
The first page (title page)—the very first kanji is hard to read (not a commonly used one—I’d have to look it up in my old kanji dictionary), but the rest basically just says “New Type Bible”.
The second page is the publishing details. It says the date it was published, the name of the printing company and address of the printer.
It was printed on April 1st, Showa Year 12 and release on April 5th, Show Year 12.
Showa 12 = 1937

So..that’s a rather old Japanese Bible you have on your hands.
The Publishing plate just gives the location in Tokyo of the printer and mentions the Japanese and (English) names who produced the adaptation.
The English name looks something like K.E. Arle, the Japanese name looks like Matsui Tarou (Taro Matsui).. though, oddly enough the Japanese name has one more kanji than usual.. (Most Japanese last names are only 2 kanji in length.. this one has “kome” the kanji for rice after the Matsui.. go figure.)

How interesting! Thank you all.

Google Translate has been pretty good for Spanish-English IME, but I don’t think it can ID kanji in an image like this and translate… and most of the kanji I don’t know…so it would take a while to figure out what to type, lol.”

On one of the first pages, it says in the only English words I’ve seen in the book – “Japanese, 6 Type Small Bible” – then below it – “A. B. S.” – which now seems to stand for American Bible Society – and “Printed in Japan”.

I looked up the Japanese Bible Association and Wikipedia et al says they were founded in 1937 but didn’t start printing bibles until 1945 because of WW2. There is also a Japan Bible Society, which I’m not sure if it is the same as the other one.

What’s odd to me is that in the back of the book, there are 12 color maps but they focus on the Northern Africa to India to Europe region only.

@prioritymail That’s where all the action happens, right?
Jesus wasn’t born in Bethlehem, PA, after all…

BTW, looks like you have:

舊新約聖書 – “Old & New Testaments of the Bible.” lit. Old New Testament Bible

日本聖書協會發行 – “Issued by the Japan Bible Association” lit. Japan Bible Association Publish/Issue

不誅複製 – In the box in the other page… Something like “Unpunished reproduction”

誅 means death penalty though, so I’m not sure.
The kanji literally mean “not death penalty reproduction”, so take that as you will.

Sorry, no time to translate any more right now. =]

@The_Idler The box actually says ”不*許*複製”. 許 means “to permit, allow.”

oops, thanks for the correction.

Fantastic how the character for “allowed” is just a couple of strokes away from “death penalty”

So yes, you’re right, “reproduction not permitted”.

@prioritymail Typical American Bibles will map the Italic Peninsula, Greece, North Africa, the Sinai Peninsula, Asia Minor, and the bit with Israel and Lebanon on it, before zooming in on Israel to show most or all of the named places relative to each other. Some Bibles will pull in closer and show a then-and-later map of Jerusalem and the surrounding countryside.