Eliot Indian Bible
The Eliot Indian Bible (Massachusett: Mamusse Wunneetupanatamwe Up-Biblum God;[1] also known as the Algonquian Bible) was the first translation of the Christian Bible into an indigenous American language, as well as the first Bible published in British North America. It was prepared by English Puritan missionary John Eliot by translating the Geneva Bible[2][3][4] into the Massachusett language.[5][6] Printed in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the work first appeared in 1661 with only the New Testament. An edition including all 66 books of both the Old and New Testaments was printed in 1663.[7]
Translator
The inscription on the 1663 edition's cover page, beginning with Mamusse Wunneetupanatamwe Up Biblum God, corresponds in English to The Whole Holy His-Bible God, both Old Testament and also New Testament. This turned by the servant of Christ, who is called John Eliot.[8] The preparation and printing of Eliot's work was supported by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England, whose governor was the eminent scientist Robert Boyle.
Eliot was determined to give the Christian Bible to the Massachusett Indian Nation in their own Massachusett language.[24] He learned the Natick dialect of the Massachusett language and its grammar.[24]
Eliot worked on the Indian Bible for over fourteen years before publication.[25] England contributed about £16,000 for its production by 1660. The money came from private donations in England and Wales. No donations or money were received 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.[26]
Eliot translated the Bible from an unwritten American Indian language into a written alphabet that the Algonquian Indians could read and understand.[26] 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:
Legacy[edit]
In 1664 an especially prepared display copy was presented to King Charles II by Robert Boyle, the Governor of the New England Company.[28] 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).[22][29] In 1685, after some debate, the New England Company decided to publish another edition of Eliot’s Indian Bible. [30] The second edition of the entire Bible was finished in 1686, at a fraction of the cost of the first edition.[31] There were 2,000 copies printed.[22] A special single leaf bearing a dedication to Boyle placed into the 1685 presentation copies that were sent to Europe.[32]
The first English edition of the entire Bible was not published in the colonies until 1752, by Samuel Kneeland.[33][34] Eliot's Indian Bible translation of the complete Christian Bible was supposedly written with one pen.[35] This printing project was the largest printing job done in 17th-century Colonial America.[13]
The Massachusett Indian language Natick dialect that the translation of Eliot's Bible was made in no longer is used in the United States.[35] 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.[15]
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.[36] This Algonquian Bible was a derivative of Eliot's Indian Bible.[37] The 1709 Algonquian Bible text book is also referred to as The Massachuset psalter.[36] 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.[38]