The Bible and Western Studies Collection

The Western-style collection is a language book, dictionary, etc., mainly in English, published in the Meiji period. In digital archives, if you search by entering "Western Studies Collection" as a keyword, you can list about 110 collections.

The Bible Collection includes books related to the Bible and Christianity, published between the Meiji and Taisho periods. In digital archives, if you search by entering "Bible Collection" as a keyword, you can list about 180 collections.

Digital Archive Yokohama's Memory URL:　https://archive.lib.city.yokohama.lg.jp/museweb/ (external site)

In the Digital Archive, you can see all pages of the materials.

"New Testament Tradition" (outside site)
Translation Committee Member The United States Bible Company 1876 (Meiji 9)
In 1872, in Yokohama, a council of Christian missionaries in Japan was held, and representatives of J.C. Hebbon, S.R. Brown, D.C. Green, N. Brown, etc., who were involved in the evangelism in Japan at that time, decided to embark on translation of the New Testament. Until then, partial translations of the Bible had begun to be published, but this was the first time I started translating the entire Bible. Translation publication was carried out in separate volumes, and when translation was possible, it was published sequentially. A series of translations are called "Meiji Gen Translation".

First edition of "English-Japanese vocabulary insert" (outside site)
Shokichi Shibata, Takashi Koyasu / Editorial Nihonsha 1873 (Meiji 6)
A full-fledged dictionary boasting the largest headline of about 55,000. It is the first English-Japanese dictionary to have about 500 illustrations posted. Figures tend to be inserted in technical terms related to ships and architecture, names of flora and fauna, and figure terms.　With the financial support of Hirayatsu Tanaka, a raw silk merchant in Yokohama, who is known as "Tenka no Itohachi", he ordered printing machines and European prints from Shanghai. The publisher, Nijusha, was a printing shop created by editors Shibata and Koyasu in Yokohama for this dictionary.

Reference: Books and Culture of Yokohama, Municipal Central Library 1994

Toshiko Kodama (President of Soshin Gakuin, Councilor of the Japan Society of English History) gave a commentary on the first release of the collection at the Digital Archive. (October 2010)

Commentary on Western Studies and Bible Collection (PDF: 248KB)