The Eliot Indian Bible

First Complete Bible Printed in America
(Published In The Algonquin Language)

John Eliot was born the third of seven children at Nashing, Essex County, England on July 31st, 1604. From 1618 to 1622 he studied for the ministry Cambridge University in England. Because he aligned himself with the Puritan, Nonconformists, he was precluded from preaching in England and instead took a teaching position in the small school of Nonconformist clergyman Thomas Hooker (later the founder of Connecticut) in the village of Little Baddow.

I believe it is during this brief period, while Eliot lived with Thomas and Susanna Hooker, that he came to know Christ as his personal Savior for he later wrote, "Here the Lord said to my dead soul, Live! Live! And through the grace of God I do live and shall live forever! When I came to this blessed family I then saw as never before, the power of godliness in its lovely vigor and efficacy."

When the Anglican Church redoubled the persecution of the Nonconformist, Hooker fled to Holland in 1630. He would later sail to Massachusetts. At that point Eliot saw that to stay in England would mean only a jail cell, and not an opportunity to minister the Gospel. So on November 3, 1631 he boarded the ship, Lyon, with about sixty other people (among them the wife and children of Governor Winthrop) and sailed to Boston. Things were much different in Boston. Upon their arrival they were warmly welcomed, and "every thing which kindness could suggest, was done to give them a pleasant reception."

Mr. Eliot was now twenty-seven years of age, in the full vigor of youthful health and strength. Within a short time after landing in Boston, God opened a door of ministry to him. He became the interim pastor of the First Church in Boston. However, in 1632 a number of his family and Nonconformist friends came from England and settled two miles away in Roxbury. He had promised them that if they came to the colonies he would be their preacher. He moved to Rox bury and nn November 5th of 1632 organized the First Church of Roxbury. For the next fifty-eight years Eliot faithfully pastored that church until he went home to be with the Lord on May 21st, 1690.

But how did he get involved with the Indians? It was about two years after becoming the pastor of the Roxbury church, that he began his ministry to the Indians. His long and dedicated efforts to reach them for Christ earned him the title "The Apostle to the Indians." He worked hard to learn their language so he could preach the Gospel of Christ to them. Many came to know Christ and in fact Eliot helped them establish villages where more than 1,000 "Praying Indians," lived and learned about the Lord. Eliot also issued a series of pamphlets known as "Eliot's Indian Tracts," to help the Indians grow in the Faith. But he knew what they needed most was the Bible in their own language. It took Eliot eight years to translate the Bible into Algonquin. Further, publishing a Bible had never been done in the colonies before and it was an expensive undertaking. This led to the formation, in England, of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in 1649. The society financed the printing of Eliot's Algonquin Bible and sent a new press, new type, and a young printer named Marmaduke Johnson to assist in the work. The first New Testament printed in America was published in September of 1661. Two years later, 1663, the complete Eliot Indian Bible was printed. Samuel Green did the printing, assisted by Marmacuke Johnson at Cambridge, Massachusetts. In his history of early printing in America, Isaiah Thomas said that the book "was a work of so much consequence as to arrest the attention of the nobility and gentry of England, as well as that of King Charles, to whom it was dedicated. The press of Harvard College, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was, for a time, as celebrated as the presses of the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, in England."

This Bible is very rare and single pages have sold for as much as $1500.