Bernard Bettelheim

Monument to Bettelheim at Gokoku-ji in Naha.

• Born: 1811
• Died: 1870

Bernard Jean Bettelheim was a Protestant missionary who resided in Naha from 1846 to 1854. He is credited with producing the first Okinawan-English dictionary, and the first translation of the Bible into Okinawan. He appointed himself translator for Commodore Matthew Perry during Perry's time in the Ryûkyû Kingdom, and proved himself a nuisance to both Perry and the kingdom's officials; the latter regularly denied his requests to meet with them, and found his proselytizing efforts troublesome and obnoxious.

Biography

Earlier Years

Bettelheim was born into a prominent Jewish family in Pressburg, Hungary, in 1811, and was educated towards possibly becoming a rabbi. Much of what is known about the early parts of his life are only known from his own writings; he claims that by the age of ten, he could read and write in Hebrew, German, and French. By the age of 12, however, he left home, and began teaching, while continuing his studies at as many as five different schools. He earned a medical degree from a university in Padua, Italy, in 1836, and according to some sources completed 47 scientific dissertations over the next three years, though this seems an improbably large number. Over the next few years, he jumped from place to place frequently, shifting between mainly Trieste, Padua, Naples, Sicily, and Greece; for a time in 1840, he served as a surgeon on-board an Egyptian man-of-war. While working as a surgeon for a regiment based in Turkey, he first began to read and study the Christian Bible. He later converted and was baptized by an English minister in Smyrna, Turkey, though he continued to engage in theological debate with local rabbis.

Soon afterward, he resigned from his post in Turkey, argued with authorities there over his pay, and then moved to England, where he sought official approval from the Church of England to become a missionary proselytizing to Jewish communities around the Mediterranean. Possessing no British university degrees, and having converted so recently from Judaism, he had trouble obtaining favor with the British religious authorities, but during his time in London met several prominent missionaries active (or formerly active) in East Asia, including Dr. Peter Parker and Karl Gutzlaff, as well as David Livingstone, famous for his activities in Africa.

Disgusted with the Church of England, he severed his ties with them, and married an Englishwoman, with whom he had a daughter, Victoria Rose, less than a year later. She was named after Sir George Rose, the head of the London Jews' Society, a group of Jews who had converted to Christianity; Sir George was also named Victoria's godfather. After a quarrel with the group he had recently joined as pastor, Bettelheim soon abandoned that group and rejoined the Church of England. This would become a pattern in his life. He applied to become an official missionary in the service of the London Jews' Society, in hopes of being sent to the Middle East to proselytize; he was only made a probationary missionary, though his own journals indicate otherwise. The Society severed their ties with him, and Bettelheim took the opportunity to join the Loochoo Naval Mission, which was at that time looking to send a missionary with medical experience to Naha.

In Okinawa

Bettelheim departed Portsmouth, England with his wife and daughter on 1845/8/8 (Sept 9), arriving in Hong Kong in January 1846 and having a second child aboard ship in the intervening time. The child was named Bernard James Gutzlaff Bettelheim. After roughly four months spent studying Chinese and networking with the local community of British missionaries in order to arrange passage to Okinawa, Bettelheim and his family secured a spot on the British ship Starling. Just prior to leaving Hong Kong, Bettelheim wrote to Lt. Herbert John Clifford, the head of the Loochoo Naval Mission, to ask for additional funds. The expedition was already looking to cost more than twice what Clifford had expected or planned for.

The family arrived in Okinawa on 1846/4/6 (May 1), along with the children's teacher and a Chinese assistant. Christianity was banned in the kingdom at that time, and though initially harbor authorities denied his requests to disembark, Bettelheim got their men drunk, and persuaded them to row him, his family, and their baggage, ashore. Once they arrived, it was too late in the day to send the Bettelheims back to the Starling, and so they were permitted to stay one night in the Buddhist temple of Gokoku-ji. Afterwards, Bettelheim simply refused to leave. He forcibly took over the temple, throwing out the monks, along with Buddhist sculptures and anything else he deemed pagan, and proceeded to make the temple his home for the next seven years. His efforts were aided by Ryukyuan reluctance to invade his wife's privacy, and by Bettelheim's repeated threats to bring down the wrath of the British Royal Navy upon the kingdom should they give him too much trouble. It is said that he considered it a Christian victory to deny the locals the use of this pagan temple.

During that time, he managed to keep the monks and other Ryukyuan authorities out of the temple, and engaged in various efforts to proselytize to the people of Naha, despite the government's efforts to stop him. He offered the authorities that he might teach English or sciences, or provide medical services, but was rebuffed, with the explanation that Chinese language, sciences, and medicine, were more than sufficient; his requests for tutors or teachers in the Chinese language and Chinese classics were granted, but he repeatedly tried to make use of these lessons to produce translations of the Bible, or to otherwise serve his missionary goals, resulting in the resignation or dismissal of his tutors.

He would break into private homes to preach to the people, and would scatter pamphlets in the marketplaces and public streets, followed by agents of the government, who would gather them up and take them away. Being a medical doctor as well, he often also provided inoculations and did rounds, visiting locals' homes and providing medical assistance, for which he gained a degree of popularity among the locals; some took to calling him "Naminoue no megane" ("the eyeglasses of Naminoue").

Bettelheim threatened on numerous occasions to contact the British authorities, but the Brits, for the most part, however, wanted to have nothing to do with him. The royal government petitioned Western crews on numerous occasions, including that of Commodore Perry, to take him away, but every time, Bettelheim, serving as interpreter, roundly refused to go; the foreign crews often refused responsibility for the man, not being British crews.

When Commodore Perry arrived in Naha in 1853, Bettelheim appointed himself interpreter for the Americans, and pressed upon Perry that he take action against the Ryukyuan government, which had so mistreated him over the years. The Commodore, for the most part, refused, but used Bettelheim as his interpreter in his various meetings with the Ryukyuan regent. He agreed to send a number of things back to Shanghai for Bettelheim, including letters and $800 to be deposited into his bank accounts; Perry also claimed a portion of the Gokoku-ji grounds to use as pasture for sheep he brought with him to Okinawa, while Bettelheim preached to the American crewmen.

Bettelheim was finally taken away, to the great relief of the royal government, by Commodore Perry on his second visit to the islands, in 1854. Despite Bettelheim's horrible behavior, utter and complete lack of respect for Okinawan or Japanese culture and political authority, destruction of sacred objects, etc., a monument was constructed in his memory at the Gokoku-ji in 1926.

References

• Kerr, George. Okinawa: The History of an Island People. pp279-346ff.
• Okinawa rekishi jinmei jiten 沖縄歴史人名事典. Okinawa bunkasha, 2002. p69.