Japanese scriptures
A family reads scriptures together in Japan. © 2021 by Intellectual Reserve, Inc. All rights reserved.
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By Mary Richards, Church News
An updated triple combination of scriptures — the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants and Pearl of Great Price — in Japanese has been released on scriptures.ChurchofJesusChrist.org and in the Gospel Library app, a letter from the First Presidency announced. The release of printed editions will be announced in coming months.
The new version includes adjustments to footnotes and study helps, headings of the Doctrine and Covenants, and minor spelling and meaning corrections to the text, according to the letter dated November 11. Members aren’t expected to acquired new scriptures because of the update.
“As members prayerfully learn and teach from the scriptures, their testimonies will grow, and they will receive greater direction in their daily lives,” the First Presidency shares in the letter.
Previously, the most recent revisions to the Japanese scriptures came 26 years ago in 1995, according to Japanese Newsroom.
The Book of Mormon was first published in Japanese in 1909. Alma O. Taylor was one of the four missionaries who landed in Japan in 1901 and was there when then-Elder Heber J. Grant — who was establishing the first mission and serving as mission president — dedicated Japan for missionary work.
By 1905, Taylor was working on the translation of the Book of Mormon and sought input from Japanese scholars as they worked on whether to use a more classical style or a more colloquial style. The classical style was selected.
A second translation, published in 1957, was made by Tatsui Sato, who was one of the first Latter-day Saints baptized in the country following World War II. It incorporated both the classic literary and colloquial, or spoken, styles. Sato also translated the Doctrine and Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price that were published in 1957.
In the 1990s, the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants and Pearl of Great Price were revised to be entirely in a colloquial style. This edition was published in 1995.
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