The history of American Indian Bible translation is part of the broader history of Christian mission, which dates to the earliest days of the church. It is as much the story of the methods and assumptions of individuals and groups involved in this ministry as it is a chronicle of the products of their efforts.
Since these efforts began in the seventeenth century, the Bible has been translated in its entirety into six North American Indian languages. Printed in 1663, John Eliot's Bible for the "praying communities" of Massachusett Indians near Boston and Roxbury was not only the first such translation but the earliest complete Bible published in North America. Governor John Winthrop and the General Court of Massachusetts Bay considered Eliot's work as a partial fulfillment of the colony's agreement with their sovereign and sponsors to "gospel" and "civilize" the New World's "savages." Though many historians now question the sincerity with which most of the colonists entered into this compact, the depth of Eliot's commitment is witnessed by the fifteen years he toiled in learning Massachusett and devising an orthography to transcribe the Bible. 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 Massachusett 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 were to elapse between the Massachusett Bible and the next complete translation, a version in Western Cree published in 1862 by associates of the British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS). These second Indian Scriptures were followed in relatively rapid succession by versions in Eastern Arctic Inuit, published in 1871 by the BFBS; Dakota or Eastern Sioux, financed by the American Bible Society (ABS) and printed in 1880; and Gwich'in (a subarctic Cordilleran language), completed in 1898 by associates of the BFBS. The Navajo Bible, published in 1985 after forty-one years of collaborative effort by the Wycliffe Society and the ABS, is the latest version to contain the complete text of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures. Although not always accorded the credit they were due, Indian speakers provided the insiders' knowledge and insights without which none of these translations would have been possible.
In addition to six unabridged Bibles, translations for portions of the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures now exist in at least forty-six Indian languages. To these should be added numerous "Bible histories," which, while not technically translations, summarize the Bible in whole or in part in Native American tongues.
Considering that the effort to produce American Indian Bibles has been under way for nearly three and a half centuries, the accomplishments of this ministry may seem modest at best. Such an appraisal, however, must be weighed against the tremendous problems involved in translation, biblical or otherwise. One of the primary obstacles facing any translator is the great difficulty entailed in learning the lexicon and syntax of another language. Linguistic plurality poses further complications. For instance, many of the metaphors and narrative forms found in the Bible are so culture-bound that, even where feasible, a literal translation would render them misleading or nonsensical to non-Western peoples. What possible meaning could a verbatim translation of the expression "Lamb of God" hold for a society without a pastoral tradition and unfamiliar with the cultural, theological, and emotional significance attached to the term lamb in Western Christology? In the past, translators tended to attribute such difficulties to what they saw as the intellectual and spiritual inferiority of Indians and other non-Western groups. However, modern translators, rejecting this interpretation as ethnocentric, instead search for parallels of biblical concepts within the spiritual traditions of the peoples with whom they are working.
In addition to problems of method, differences among denominations and church societies regarding the importance of biblical translation in missionary work have also affected the pace and number of translations. It is significant, for example, that the work of translating the Bible has been an overwhelmingly Protestant endeavor. At least two causes exist for this fact. In the first place, because of the primacy of the sacraments in Roman Catholicism, Catholic missionaries have traditionally placed more stress on producing native-language versions of these rituals than on translating Bibles. As a result, Indian-language versions of the Lord's Prayer, the rite of confession, and the Mass exist for many groups among whom Catholic missions have been active. Secondly, in the centuries preceding the Second Vatican Council in 1962, the magisterium—the officials invested with the teaching authority of the Catholic Church—discouraged the dissemination of Bibles among the laity, believing that laypeople lacked the proper hermeneutical and theological training to achieve correct interpretations of biblical texts. Church officials instead encouraged the production and distribution of Bible summaries that supplemented catechisms in edifying readers with what they believed were proper lessons in faith and morals. Translations of both these summaries and catechisms now exist in many American Indian languages.
In contrast with its Catholic counterpart, the abiding tenet of Protestant missiology has been that contact with God's word is the major avenue by which grace effects salvation, and many Protestant churches and missionary agencies have for years directed their monetary and human resources toward translating the Bible into Indian languages.
Associates of the American Bible Society, the Canadian Bible Society, and the Wycliffe Society's Summer Institute of Linguistics are currently involved in at least twenty projects among Native Americans in the United States and among First Nations in Canada. These include translations for portions of the Scriptures into Western Keres, Zuni, Havasupai, Ute, Crow, Cheyenne, Mesquakie, Choctaw, Inupiatun, Siberian Yupik, Carrier, Naskapi, Micmac, and Dogrib. In addition, a new version of the Navajo Christian Scriptures, one that will be more in keeping with the tribe's contemporary language and culture, is currently in preparation. Finally, work is under way on a Central Yupik version of the Hebrew Testament. When this work is finished, a complete Bible will exist in that language, making it the seventh American Indian Scriptures.
Wilberforce Eames, Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico "Bible Translations," ed. Frederick W. Hodge (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1912); William R. Hutchison, Errand to the World: American Protestant Thought and Foreign Missions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987).
The author wishes to thank David Kenderick and Leanna Lupas of the American Bible Society and J. David Myers of the North American Branch of Summer Institute of Linguistics for their contributions to this article.
Harvey Markowitz
D'Arcy McNickle Center for the History of the American Indian
Newberry Library
