Jonathan Goble of Japan: Marine, Missionary, Maverick

Abstract

This is a readable and entertaining account of the most colorful and eccentric missionary in nineteenth-century Japan, Jonathan Goble (1827-1926). Goble first visited Japan as a marine in Commodore Matthew C. Perry's expedition of 1853-54. He won acclaim in the official Narrative of the Expedition for befriending the Japanese castaway Sam Patch. After returning to Japan as a missionary of the American Baptist Free Mission Society, Goble translated more than half the New Testament into Japanese. His Gospel of Matthew is the oldest extant Scripture portion printed in Japan. He preached to samurai and merchants, to outcasts and the blind. Goble led an exciting life not only as a missionary but also as an interpreter, translator, writer, lecturer, inventor, merchant and builder. He rubbed shoulders with Iwakura Tomomi, prime minister; Yamanouchi Yodo, leading daimyo; Iwasaki Yataro, founder of the Mitsubishi financial empire; and other notables. Strong-willed and prone to violence, his maverick ways got him consigned to a Baptist limbo. In this work, the first biography of Goble, his fascinating life illuminates the strange world of Christian missions in nineteenth-century Japan.