Rare Books

Native American Bibles

Since the efforts began in the seventeenth century, the entire Bible has been translated into six North American languages. Printed in 1633, John Eliot's Bible for the "praying communities" of Massachusetts Indians near Boston and Roxbury was not only the first such translation, but also the earliest complete Bible published in North America. Governor John Winthrop and the General Court of Massachusetts Bay considered Eliot's work to be a partial fulfillment of the colony's agreement with their sovereign and sponsors to "gospel" and "civilize" the New World's "savages." Eliot viewed this difficult undertaking as "a sacred and holy work, to be regarded with fear, care, and reverence." Historians now deem it a turning point in the history of Christian missionary work. As one scholar has stated, Eliot's Massachusetts Scriptures were "without precedent in modern times, for there was no tradition of such Bible translation for missionary purposes, except for versions of the almost legendary figures of the Early Church—Ulfilas, Mesrop, and Cyril and Methodius."

Even though Indian translations of portions of the Bible continued to appear during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, two hundred years elapsed between the Massachusetts Bible and the next complete translation, a version in Western Cree published in 1862. These second Indian Scriptures were followed in relatively rapid succession by versions in Eastern Arctic Inuit, published in 1871; Dakota or Eastern Sioux, printed in 1880; and Gwich'in (a subarctic Cordilleran language), completed in 1898. The Navajo Bible, published in 1985 after forty-one years, is the latest version to contain a complete translation of the Hebrew and Greek text.

Click here to visit the Native American Bibles Gallery.