伯徳令記念塔拓本 / Rubbing of Monument to Bettelheim

A hanging scroll. A rubbing of a monument to Bettelheim. Hakutokurei (Bernard Jean Bettelheim) was the first Christian Missionary to come to Okinawa, arriving in April 1846. The title on the outside of the scroll is "Hakutokurei Yaku Ryukyugo Seisho [Bettelheim, translator, the Bible in Ryukyuan]". On the hanging scroll, there is a note: "Hakutokurei yaku Ryukyugo no seisho [Bettelheim translation into Ryukyuan language of the Bible]". This is followed by the sentence: "Yohane den yon shō dai jūyonsetsu"( Gospel of John, Chapter 4, Section 14), below which is the passage inself (in katakana) translated by Bettelheim himself into the Ryukyuan language. The remainder of the scroll consists of rubbings of stone plates of some country names. The passage from the Bible is as follows: "Jesus said to her, ‘but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.’”." The country names on the stone plates are the countries where Bettelheim engaged in missionary work, and the names are written in each country's language. This Monument was erected at Naminoue Gokokuji in 1926 at the proposal of Earl Bull who was a Methodist missionary but the plate was partially destroyed during the battle of Okinawa, and its current whereabout cannot be confirmed. (Updated onNovember 4, 2022)