Archives For Publications

Publications in Biblical Studies by and/or for Japanese

If you enjoy journals like Harvard Theological Review, where you can read about a wide range of topics in a single journal, you might enjoy Studies in Theology and the Humanities.

Studies in Theology and the Humanities is an academic journal published annually by Tohoku Gakuin University, which is located in Sendai, Japan (near the epicenter of the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake). The journal covers topics in biblical studies, Jewish and Christian interpretation, theology, and other areas of religious studies.

Tohoku Gakuin University
Tohoku Gakuin University, Sendai, Japan

Until recently, if you didn’t have easy access to a university library, it would have been difficult to find university journals like this. Now, though, more and more universities are putting their journals online for free viewing. And thanks to TGU, you can freely download Studies in Theology and the Humanities 2 (2012) in its entirety or as separate articles.

Most articles in journals like this are in Japanese, but occasionally you can find abstracts and even full articles in English and other languages. In this issue, David Murchie’s report on the American Historical Association’s annual meeting is an English report.

But even if you don’t read Japanese, take a look at the titles and authors. Continue Reading…

Here are the top-selling Bible-related books for July 2012 on Kyo Bun Kwan’s Best 20 list. It’s interesting to note that the number of Bible-related books in the top 20 doubled this month, with 10 titles compared to June’s 5 titles (see my post on the Best 20 for June 2012). Continue Reading…

The Japan Society of New Testament Studies has just published “Jubilee Volume” number 40 (2012) of New Testament Studies (the Japanese title of the journal is 『新約学研究』).

Articles, reviews, books reviewed, and conference papers are all in Japanese, but the journal includes a translation of its contents (mostly English, but some German). I have reproduced only English titles here, with links to the books reviewed.

 

Articles in New Testament Studies 40 (2012)

Masashi Sawamura, “Anomia in Matthew: On the Argument over its Subject”

Masanobu Endo, “Life and Knowledge in John 17:3 are Subset or Convertible? A Discourse Analysis”

Kota Yamada, “Rhetorical Analysis of I John” Continue Reading…

Visitors to BibleGateway.com can use a single English interface to search 135 Bible versions in 47 languages. Unfortunately, though, no Japanese versions are among them.

BibleGateway does link to downloadable and searchable PDFs of Bible books from the Japanese Living Bible, but this is unwieldy for standard searches. Besides, few churches or scholars regularly use the Japanese Living Bible in worship or in study.

Instead, most Japanese Bible students would begin their searches with one or both of the two most widely used Bible versions in Japan: the New Interconfessional Translation Bible and the New Japanese Bible.

Search the Shinkyodoyaku Online

Continue Reading…

Yesterday I visited Pitts Theology Library at Emory University. Surely it has the best biblical and theological studies collection in the Southeast U.S., where I’m spending most of my summer.

After I finished my own little research project, I asked one of the reference librarians if I could get a list of the periodicals about Japan there at Pitts Theology Library. I was hoping that the list would include several of the most important periodicals related to biblical studies, theology, and religious studies coming out of Japan. If so, I knew it would be instructive and interesting to others.

Pitts Theology Library

The librarian kindly generated a list of 31 periodicals with “Japan” as a keyword somewhere in the record (including place of publication, etc.). Of course, this yielded titles for which Japan is neither the country of origin nor the main focus, but that’s to be expected. Continue Reading…