Case 20 - Bibles in Pacific Island Languages 1

[Bible in Hawaiian]. <em>Ka Baibala Hemolele o ke Kauoha kahiko a me ke Kauoha hou.</em> Nu Yoka: Ua paiia no ko Amerika poe hoolaha Baibala, 1884.

[Bible in Hawaiian]. Ka Baibala Hemolele o ke Kauoha kahiko a me ke Kauoha hou. Nu Yoka: Ua paiia no ko Amerika poe hoolaha Baibala, 1884.

The New Testament in Hawaiian was first printed in 1835, and the first complete Bible Ka Palapala Hemolele (The Holy Scriptures) followed in 1839. The first Protestant missionary in Hawaii, Hiram Bingham (1789-1869), completed the translation in cooperation with other members of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions.

In 1868 a major revision was undertaken by a committee headed by the Reverend Ephraim Clarke, producing Ka Baibala Hemolele (The Holy Bible), the version displayed here, and which is still in use today.

[Bible in Hawaiian]. <em>Ka Baibala Hemolele o ke Kauoha kahiko a me ke Kauoha hou.</em> Nu Yoka: Ua paiia no ko Amerika poe hoolaha Baibala, 1884.

[Bible in Hawaiian]. Ka Baibala Hemolele o ke Kauoha kahiko a me ke Kauoha hou. Nu Yoka: Ua paiia no ko Amerika poe hoolaha Baibala, 1884.
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[Bible in Tahitian]. <em>Te Bibilia Mo'a Ra oia te Faufaa Tahito e te Faufaa Api ra.</em> Wellington: British and Foreign Bible Society, 1970.

[Bible in Tahitian]. Te Bibilia Mo'a Ra oia te Faufaa Tahito e te Faufaa Api ra. Wellington: British and Foreign Bible Society, 1970.

In 1797, the English Protestant Henry Nott (1774-1844), of the London Missionary Society, travelled to Tahiti, where he mastered the native language and translated the Bible into Tahitian, with the support of King Pomare II.

Nott’s first Tahitian translation, of the Gospel of Luke, was printed in 1818, and a New Testament followed in 1829. After twenty years of toil, Nott’s complete Tahitian Bible was printed in 1838.

The edition on display features the text of the fifth and final nineteenth century revision of the Tahitian Bible completed by J.L. Green in 1884.

[Bible in Tahitian]. <em>Te Bibilia Mo'a Ra oia te Faufaa Tahito e te Faufaa Api ra.</em> Wellington: British and Foreign Bible Society, 1970.

[Bible in Tahitian]. Te Bibilia Mo'a Ra oia te Faufaa Tahito e te Faufaa Api ra. Wellington: British and Foreign Bible Society, 1970.
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[Bible in Rarotongan]. <em>Te Bibilia tapu ra: koia te Koreromotu Taito e te Koreromotu Ou.</em> Lonedona: Societi Bibilia i Beritani e te au Enua Katoa, 1851.

[Bible in Rarotongan]. Te Bibilia tapu ra: koia te Koreromotu Taito e te Koreromotu Ou. Lonedona: Societi Bibilia i Beritani e te au Enua Katoa, 1851.

The New Testament was first translated into Rarotongan by the English missionaries John Williams (1796-1839), Aaron Buzacott (1800-1864) and Charles Pitman (1796-1884) and printed in London, under the supervision of Williams, in 1836.

The missionaries had intended to print the remainder of the Scriptures in Rarotonga, but a portion of their Old Testament manuscript was destroyed in a cyclone in 1846 and had to be rewritten. Buzacott thus returned to England and revised the entire work. The complete Bible in Rarotongan, displayed here, was first published by the British and Foreign Bible Society in 1851.

[Bible in Rarotongan]. <em>Te Bibilia tapu ra: koia te Koreromotu Taito e te Koreromotu Ou.</em> Lonedona: Societi Bibilia i Beritani e te au Enua Katoa, 1851.

[Bible in Rarotongan]. Te Bibilia tapu ra: koia te Koreromotu Taito e te Koreromotu Ou. Lonedona: Societi Bibilia i Beritani e te au Enua Katoa, 1851.
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