The Holy Bible ... Translated into the Indian Language ... Cambridge (Massachusetts): Samuel Green and Marmaduke Johnson 1663.
20,-226^d 4º

Front cover	Title page	The 1st Book of Kings, chapter 1

In order to do missionary work among the native Americans in Massachusetts the clergyman John Eliot (1604-1690) began to study their language Algonquin. In the 1650’s he made this translation of the Bible into Algonquin, which implied that he had to construct a phonetic rendering of the language using the Latin alphabet. It was an expensive project that was supported, financially as well as practically, by the English Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England.
This copy is bound in leather decorated in gold.

19.6 x 15 cm.

References (in Danish): Palle Birkelund, “To Indianer-bibler i Det kongelige Bibliotek. Et bidrag til Nordamerikas ældste boghistorie”, Fund og Forskning I, 1954, pp. 138-156.
Jakob H. Grønbæk, “Indianerbibler i Det Kongelige Bibliotek”, Magasin fra Det Kongelige Bibliotek 17, no. 1, March 2004, pp. 57-64.

© Det Kongelige Bibliotek 2003