In 1661, a Boston printer named Samuel Green (1615-1702) printed the first complete English Bible translated by John Eliot (1604-1690) into Massachuset, a Natick-Algonquin language. The second edition of Eliot’s Bible was revised by him with the assistance of John Cotton (1640-1699) and printed in 1685.
Special Collections and University Archives at San Diego State University received a leaf of the Book of Proverbs from the 1685 printing of the Eliot Bible as a gift from Dr. Guerard Piffard, a charter member of the Friends of the SDSU Library. This fragment, measuring 18 centimeters in height, contains text from Proverbs, Chapter 10 verse 19 through Chapter 13 verse 4.
For additional information about this and other editions of the Eliot Bible, please consult James Constantine Pilling’s book, Bibliography of the Algonquin Languages (Washington: Govt. Print. Off., 1891).
This item is available for consultation in SpecialCollections and University Archives during our regular business hours and may be requested by the use of the following call number: BS 345 A2 E4 1685.
