Brattlecast #117 - The First American Bible

Brattlecast: A Firsthand Look at Secondhand Books

Today in the studio we have a very special item: a single page from a copy of the first Bible printed in Colonial America. Mamusse Wunneetupanatamwe Up-Biblum God, also known as the Eliot Indian Bible, is a translation of the Geneva Bible into Natick, a previously unwritten dialect spoken by the Algonqian peoples of Massachusetts (British publishers held a monopoly on the publication of English-language Bibles, so none were printed in America until after the revolution). This Bible was the work of John Eliot, a Puritan missionary, and a team of Algonquin translators. Printed in Cambridge it took over 14 years to produce. You can view the full Bible here and learn more about its laborious, painstaking creation on today’s episode.