Muraoka Takamitsu, professor emeritus at Leiden University in the Netherlands who championed Japan's reflection on its wartime past, has died. He passed away on October 10 in Leiden, the Netherlands, according to Japan's Christian Shimbun on October 13. He was 88.
Born in Hiroshima Prefecture in 1938, Muraoka earned his doctorate from Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He gained academic recognition for his research on emphatic expressions in Biblical Hebrew. He was an authority on ancient biblical languages including Aramaic and the Septuagint. He taught Hebrew and ancient Israeli history at Leiden University after positions at the University of Manchester in the UK and the University of Melbourne in Australia. In 2017, he received the Burkitt Medal from the British Academy.
After retiring in 2003, he taught specialized courses free of charge at universities and seminaries across Asian countries wounded by Japanese aggression, including South Korea, Indonesia, Singapore, Hong Kong, and the Philippines. In 2014, he also lectured at Torch Trinity Graduate University in Seoul and Handong Global University in Pohang.
On May 27, 2015, he attended the Wednesday Demonstration for Japanese military comfort women victims held in Korea. "The history of the Japanese military inflicting wounds on you and trampling your dignity as human beings is the history of my homeland, and I bear responsibility as a Japanese citizen," he said in apology. He added, "As a Japanese citizen, I feel nothing but shame and intense anger at the current government's actions that worsen the wounds of the victims." He then bowed to Gil Won-ok and other survivors.