Bahasa Malayu / Malay Bible History (2)

**List: Malay Ministry the Bible ( الكتاب, al-Kitab ) Malay... "MALAY SCRIPTURES    The relative priority of the Malay Version and the Massa- chusetts Version of John Eliot initiates an interesting comparison. Both were highly important "firsts."   The first Malay Gospel is called "the earliest example in history of the translation and printing of a book of the Bible in a non-European language as a means of evangelization."1   That was issued in 1629, thirty-four ---------    1 Historical Catalogue of Printed Scriptures, 1037. years before Eliot’s Bible was printed on the other side of the world.   Eliot’s Bible of 1663 was "the earliest version of the Bible prepared by a Protestant my. for a pagan people."1 The difference lies in the scope of the two undertakings, one of them only a single Gospel, the other an entire Bible.   Although the first Malay Gospel was gradually supplemented by other single books, it was not till five years after Eliot’s Bible was printed that even a complete New Testament in Malay appeared. And as for the first Malay Bible, it belongs to the 18th century. A further link between the two versions, so widely separated geographically, yet both comprised within the term "the Indies" (East and West), is the fact that the 1677 reprint of the Malay Gospels is dedicated to the same Robert Boyle, Esq., to whom, as head of the "New England Company,"--that "earliest my. society established in England,"--John Eliot had to apply for the means to issue his Massachusettes version in its successive editions.    Several ministers of the Dutch State Church (Reformed) in Java were engaged for many years upon a fresh translation of the whole Bible into "High Malay," which appeared in roman type first in Holland and twenty-five years later in Arabic type in Java.   From that time onward for a century and a half variety reigned in the many publications of Scriptures for the Malay field, divided as it was between the British and the Dutch Empires. Three Bible Societies and many missions and individuals were participants during this period, and there was divergence not only in the use of Arabic or roman type, but even in the system of romanization used.   Not until 1897 did a new era of com- mittee revisions begin, but, unhappily, little unanimity has been achieved and the Malay still awaits for a revised Bible in a single volume.    Meanwhile, mies. working in the Dutch East Indies found it necessary to reach the people among whom they labored by means of fresh translations of Scripture into the mixed dialect spoken in Java, Borneo, etc.   It is interesting to find that the earliest complete New Testament issued in this "Low" Malay was the work of Medhurst, one of the mies. who first revised Morrison’s Chinese Bible.   And a second sort of "Low" Malay, called "Baba" to distinguish it from the other, is repre- sented by a Gospel or two, prepared for the use of the thousands of Chinese settled on the Straits of Malacca.   It contains many Chinese elements, grafted on the Malay stock.    1 Historical Catalogue of Printed Scriptures, 1095."-- 1000 Tongues, 1939   [Info only]

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