The First Bible Printed in North America
Some of you may know that the first Bible printed in Hebrew in North America was printed in 1814 in Philadelphia. If interested, you can either buy a copy here or just read about it here. What may not be so well-know is what was the first Bible printed in any language in North America. As I now know from a post at PhiloBiblos that would have been,
John Eliot’s 1663 “Indian Bible,” (Mamusse Wunneetupanatamwe Up-Biblum God) a single-handed translation of the Bible into the Natick dialect of Massachusetts. This was the first Bible printed (in any language) in North America, and was the most substantive single printing project in the colonial period.
Who would have figured. This Bible was apparently printed (the photo is from the same site) in order to facilitate missionizing among the Native-American Indians.
August 3rd, 2007 at 8:27 am
[...] in North America, some might be surprised that it was printed sans vowel markings in 1814. The referenced post from the Menachem Mendel blog also discusses Puritan John Eliot’s 1663 Indian Bible. Eliot had radical ideas about [...]