Custodian: University of Glasgow Library Special Collections

Reference: Sp Coll BE6-c.1

Mamusse wunneetupanatamwe Up-Biblum God : naneeswe Nukkone Testament kah wonk Wusku Testament· Ne quoshkinnumuk nashpe Wuttinneumoh Christ noh asoowesit John Eliot. Nahohtôeu ontchetôe printeuoomuk, 1663

A translation, by John Eliot for the Corporation for Propagation of the Gospel in New England, into Massachuset of the Old and New Testament and the metrical Psalms. Printed in two columns.

John Eliot took orders in the Church of England, but a change in his theological opinions led him to join the Protestant exodus to America. In 1631 he landed at Boston and in the following year he was ordained "teacher" of the Church in Roxbury, near Boston. Some years later he devoted himself to missionary work among the Massachusetts Indians and by 1646 he was able to preach to them in their own tongue.

Eliot finished his translation of the Bible in 1658; the New Testament was issued in 1661, about a thousand copies being reserved for inclusion in the Bible which appeared two years later. To the student of church history it possesses unique interest, as the earliest version of the Bible prepared by a Protestant missionary for a pagan people.

Catalogue entry here.