Bible Society partnership aims to offer entire Bible in sign language for the price of a printed copy

TOKYO, Japan — The Japan Bible Society (JBS) has teamed up with the Japan Deaf Evangel Mission to produce the entire Bible in sign language on video and DVD. In a project which will take years to complete, the two agencies are initially producing the Bible as a 50-volume set of videos, presenting the Old and the New Testament in Japanese sign language and playing for a total of 104 hours.

“The education system for the deaf in Japan puts a great emphasis on lip-reading,” explained Emi Beland, Secretary to the General Secretary of the JBS. “This is slowly changing now, but deaf people’s reading ability and their understanding of grammar does not allow them to read and fully understand the written Bible.”

The Japan Deaf Evangel Mission embarked on the massive project in 1993 after recognising the need for a Bible in a format which hearing-impaired people could understand. So far nine books (Jonah, Ruth, Mark, Acts, Philippians, I Thessalonians, II Thessalonians, James and Galatians) are available on 15 video tapes. Work began in April on the book of Genesis. The Japan Bible Society has joined the project recently in order to speed up its completion and to bring down the price of the videos.

“From the pace the project was going at the beginning, to complete the whole Bible would have taken 90 years,” Ms Beland explained. “But now, with JBS co-operating, the goal is to have completed in 15.”

The Society has launched a fundraising campaign in order to be able to sell the 208 video tapes at 100 yen (US $0.85) each.

Ms Beland added that the eventual aim is to put the Bible into DVD format, thereby reducing the number of volumes to 50.

“Our popular printed Bibles range from 3,000 (US $25.50) to 6,000 yen (US $51.00). 50 volumes at 100 yen each will come up to 5,000 yen (US $42.50) which will be very close to the price of a printed Bible,” she said.

There are an estimated 300,000 hearing-impaired people in Japan, including some 3,000 Christians.

According to a report in a Japanese English-language newspaper, The Japan Times, production of sign-language Bibles has been attempted in more than 20 other countries but has made little progress because of the high cost.