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Bible in Colonial America

Bible in Colonial America,
originally brought from England and Europe in various versions, was first partially translated and published in the English colonies with the issuance of the Bay Psalm Book (1640). The first publication of the complete Bible was the translation of John Eliot into the language of the Massachuset Indians (New Testament, 1661; Old Testament, 1663). The British monopolistically refused to let an English-language Bible be printed in the colonies and so none was issued until after the Revolution, when Robert Aitken of Philadelphia printed the New Testament in 1777 and the complete Bible in 1782.

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