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The Gospels of Matthew and John and the Epistle to the Ephesians in Kiribati.
The Gospels of Matthew and John and the Epistle to the Ephesians in Kiribati.
BIB.003975
Bible - Printed Book
1866
United States
Kiribati
Printed on Paper
6.5 × 4 × 0.6 in. (16.5 × 10.2 × 1.4 cm)
On View in The History of the Bible, Bibles for Everyone
This copy of the Gospels of Matthew and John, along with the Epistle to the Ephesians, was translated into the Kiribati language by Hiram Bingham Jr., an American missionary who began working in the late 1850s in Kiribati, a group of islands in the central Pacific . Kiribati, or Gilbertese, did not have a writing system for its language at that time. Bingham developed an alphabet in collaboration with local peoples, which he used to print his translation of these books of the Bible. He supervised the publication of this edition in 1866 with the American Bible Society in New York. Today, around 120,000 people speak Kiribati.
Printed in 1866 by the American Bible Society, New York City, New York. Acquired after 1866 by Fred J. Braendle, unknown location.[1] Acquired before 2016 by Dr. Andrew Stimer, private collector, Camarillo, California; Purchased in 2016 by Green Collection, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Donated in 2017 to National Christian Foundation (later The Signatry), under the curatorial care of Museum of the Bible, Washington, DC.
Notes: [1] Fred J. Braendle’s name is inscribed on the front free endpaper. No other information is available at this time.
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