16 - British Bible Societies and the Translation of the Bible into Japanese in the Nineteenth Century

Summary

THE CROSS-DENOMINATIONAL BRITISH and Foreign Bible Society was founded in 1804 with William Wilberforce as its patron to promote the wider circulation of the Christian scriptures not only in England and Wales but also overseas. Its aim was to translate and distribute the Christian Bible without note or comment in as many languages as possible. In 1809 in response to the Scottish enthusiasm for the formation of the BFBS and the desire to maintain a Scottish identity, various local Bible societies north of the border came together to form their own separate National Bible Society of Scotland. These two Societies patronized by evangelical noblemen and endowed with Georgian and Victorian wealth quickly became multinational organizations establishing overseas territories and agencies and working closely with the burgeoning British missionary movement to spread the Protestant Christian message throughout the world. Using the latest technology in printing, the extent of Bible production was enormous. In China alone, in 1899 the year's printing exceeded 1,000,000 copies. Writing about India, Eugene Stock, the historian of the Church Missionary Society (CMS), noted ‘the question is often and justly put. What would the Missionary Societies do without the Bible Society? Yet it would be equally just to ask. What would the Bible Society do without Missionary Societies, which provide the living men who are the translators and revisers [of the Bible]?’ The Bible Societies were an essential part of the worldwide missionary effort. Clearly, the BFBS was the ‘valued fellow- worker of all missions’, and so it would also prove to be in Japan.

The Bible Societies were engaged in both supporting the translation of the Bible and its distribution through the employment of colporteurs and Bible-women, which also supplemented and benefitted the work of missionaries in the field. From their headquarters in London and Edinburgh, the two Bible Societies worked through their own European supervising agents and local Committees made up of missionaries to undertake and supervise the work of the Societies in mission field.