Eliot Indian Bible

The history of Eliot's Indian Bible involves three historical events that came together to produce the Algonquian Bible.

Eliot was determined to give the Christian Bible to them in their own Massachusett language.[23] He learned the Natick dialect of the Massachusett language and its grammar.[23]

Eliot worked on the Indian Bible for over fourteen years before publication.[24] England contributed about £16,000 for its production by 1660. The money came from private donations in England and Wales. There was no donations or money from the New England colonies for Eliot's Indian Bible. The translation answered the question received many times by Eliot from the Massachusett was "How may I get faith in Christ?" The ecclesiastical answer was "Pray and read the Bible." After Eliot's translation, there was a Bible they could read.[25]

Eliot translated the Bible from an unwritten American Indian language into a written alphabet that the Algonquian Indians could read and understand.[25] To show the difficulty of the Algonquian language used in Eliot's Indian Bible Cotton Mather gives as an example the Algonquian word Nummatchekodtantamoonganunnonash (32 characters) which means "our lusts".[7] He said that the Indian language did not have the least affinity to or derivation from any European speech.[7]

Some ecclesiastical questions given to Eliot by the Natick Indians that were to be answered by the new Algonquian Bible and Indian religious learning were:

• If but one parent believe, what state are our children in?
• How doth much sinne make grace abound?
• If an old man as I repent, may I be saved?
• What meaneth that, Let the trees of the Wood rejoice?
• What meaneth that, We cannot serve two masters?
• Can they in Heaven see us here on Earth?
• Do they see and know each other? Shall I know you in heaven?
• Do they know each other in Hell?
• What meaneth God, when he says, Ye shall be my Jewels
• If God made hell in one of the six dayes, why did God make Hell before Adam had sinned?
• Doe not Englishmen spoile their souls, to say a thing cost them more then it did? and is it not all one as to steale?[26]

In 1664 an especially prepared display copy was presented to King Charles II by Robert Boyle, the Governor of the New England Company.[27] Many copies of the first edition (1663) of Eliot’s Indian Bible were destroyed by the British in 1675-76 by a war against Metacomet (war chief of the Wampanoag Indians).[21][28] In 1685, after some debate, the New England Company decided to publish another edition of Eliot’s Indian Bible. [29] The second edition of the entire Bible was finished in 1686, at a fraction of the cost of the first edition.[30] There were 2,000 copies printed.[21] A special single leaf bearing a dedication to Boyle placed into the 1685 presentation copies that were sent to Europe.[31]

The first English edition of the entire Bible was not published in the colonies until 1752, by Samuel Kneeland.[32][33] Eliot's Indian Bible translation of the complete Christian Bible was supposedly written with one pen.[34] This printing project was the largest printing job done in 17th-century Colonial America.[12]

The Massachusett Indian language Natick dialect that the translation of Eliot's Bible was made in no longer is used in the United States.[34] The Algonquian Bible is today unreadable by most people in the world.[7] Eliot's Indian Bible is notable for being the earliest known example of the translation and putting to print the entire 66 books of the Christian Bible into a new language of no previous written words.[14] Eliot's Indian Bible was also significant because it was the first time the entire Bible was translated into a language not native to the translator. Previously scholars had translated the Bible from Greek, Hebrew, or Latin into their own language. With Eliot the translation was into a language he was just learning for the purpose of evangelization.[7]

In 1709 a special edition of the Algonquian Bible was authored by Experience Mayhew with the Indian words in one column and the English words in the opposite column. It had only Psalms and the Gospel of John. It was used for training the local Massachusett Indians to read the scriptures.[35] This Algonquian Bible was a derivative of Eliot's Indian Bible.[36] The 1709 Algonquian Bible text book is also referred to as The Massachuset psalter.[35] This 1709 edition is based on the King James Bible just like Eliot's Indian Bible (aka: Mamusse Wunneetupanatamwe Up Biblum God).[5]

A second edition printing of Eliot's Indian Bible was an instrumental source for the Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project where it was compared to the King James Bible in order to relearn Wôpanâak (Wampanoag) vocabulary and grammar.[37]

• John Ratcliff (bookbinder)
• Pony Express Bible
• Early American publishers and printers

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article "Eliot, John".

• American Indian, Culture and Research Journal (1974). American Indian Culture and Research Journal. American Indian Culture and Research Center, University of California.
• Baker, David J. (2002). British Identities and English Renaissance Literature. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-78200-5.
• Beach, William Wallace (1877). The Indian Miscellany: Containing Papers on the History, Antiquities, Arts, Languages, Religions, Traditions and Superstitions of the American Aborigines ; with Descriptions of Their Domestic Life, Manners, Customs, Traits, Amusements and Exploits ; Travels and Adventures in the Indian Country ; Incidents to Border Warfare; Missionary Relations, Etc. J. Munsell. p. 411.
• Francis, Convers (1836). Life of John Eliot, the Apostle to the Indians. Hilliard, Gray. ISBN 9780722285497.
• Gregerson, Linda (10 April 2013). Empires of God: Religious Encounters in the Early Modern Atlantic. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 978-0-8122-2260-9.
• Kane, Joseph (1997). Famous First Facts, A Record of First Happenings, Discoveries, and Inventions in American History (5th ed.). H.W. Wilson Company. p. 65, item 1731. ISBN 0-8242-0930-3. The first bookbinder was John Ratliffe of Massachusetts, who in 1663 was commissioned to bind missionary John Eliot's Algonkian translation of the Bible. His job was to "take care of the binding of 200 of them strongly and as speedily as may bee with leather, or as may bee most serviceable for the Indians." On August 30, 1664, he sent a letter to the commissioners of New England stating that he was not well satisfied with the fees paid him for binding, and that three shillings four pence was the lowest price at which he could bind the books.
• Klauber, Martin I. (1 April 2008). The Great Commission: Evangelicals and the History of World Missions. B&H Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-8054-4300-4.
• Massachusetts Historical Society (1862). Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society. The Society.
• Mayhew, Experience (2008). Experience Mayhew's Indian Converts: A Cultural Edition. Univ of Massachusetts Press. ISBN 978-1-55849-661-3.
• Nord, David Paul (23 July 2004). Faith in Reading : Religious Publishing and the Birth of Mass Media in America: Religious Publishing and the Birth of Mass Media in America. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-803861-0.
• Round, Phillip H. (11 October 2010). Removable Type: Histories of the Book in Indian Country, 1663-1880. Univ of North Carolina Press. ISBN 978-0-8078-9947-2.
• Rumball-Petre, Edwin A. R. (2000). America's First Bibles: With a Census of 555 Extant Bibles. Martino Publishing. ISBN 978-1-57898-260-8.
• Stone, Larry (21 September 2010). The Story of the Bible: The Fascinating History of Its Writing, Translation & Effect on Civilization. Thomas Nelson Inc. ISBN 978-1-59555-119-1.
• Szasz, Margaret (2007). Indian Education in the American Colonies, 1607-1783. University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 978-0-8032-5966-9.
• Thomas, Isaiah (1874). The History of Printing in America: With a Biography of Printers, and an Account of Newspapers. To which is Prefixed a Concise View of the Discovery and Progress of the Art in Other Parts of the World. In Two Volumes. From the Press of Isaiah Thomas, jun. Isaac Sturtevant, Printer.
• Thorowgood, Thomas (2003). The Eliot Tracts: With Letters from John Eliot to Thomas Thorowgood and Richard Baxter. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-313-30488-0.
• U.S. Government Printing Office (1898). Congressional Edition. U.S. Government Printing Office.
• Winship, George Parker (1946). The Cambridge Press, 1638-1692: A Reëxamination of the Evidence Concerning the Bay Psalm Book and the Eliot Indian Bible as Well as Other Contemporary Books and People. University of Pennsylvania Press.

Further reading

• De Normandie, James (July 1912). "John Eliot, the Apostle to the Indians". The Harvard Theological Review. Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Harvard Divinity School. 5 (3): 349–370. doi:10.1017/S0017816000013559. hdl:2027/nnc2.ark:/13960/t2m68w501. JSTOR 1507287. S2CID 162354472.
• Cogley, Richard W. (Summer 1991). "John Eliot and the Millennium". Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation. University of California Press on behalf of the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture. 1 (2): 227–250. JSTOR 1123872.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Eliot Indian Bible.

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• Complete Algonquian Indian Bible 1663
• Complete Algonquian Indian Bible 1685
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• Psalms of David with the Gospel according to John, in columns of Indian and English
• A Sketch of the Life of the Apostle Eliot: Prefatory to a Subscription for Erecting a Monument