Please allow us the opportunity to introduce ourselves and the purpose of this correspondence. My name is Mark Smith, and I am the administrative director of the BiblicalHeritageExhibit.com in Tacoma, WA. We produce and provide, for the public use, facsimile editions of antiquarian Bibles and books and related items that visually enhance a historic presentation, whether institutions, collectors, museums, or academic exhibits and display, we are reproducing rare and original pieces for use in visual education. Our primary function is reproducing in facsimile the finest extant copies of the historic line of Bibles and books that tell the story of the transmission of God’s Word from the Hebrew and Greek through the English Bible, and many accompanying texts along the way.

We are working with American Indian missionary Gerry Locklear on reproducing for him this nation’s first printed Bible; it is a First Nation Bible, not in English but in the Natick language of the Wampanoag Indians of Massachusetts, called the Algonquians. This Bible was translated by missionary John Eliot with the help of several native Indians, including two men who dedicated themselves to printing it in 1661 as a complete New Testament, and then in 1663 the complete whole Bible. The Wampanoag language was not a written language, so John Eliot dedicated 14 years to learning the language and then producing a written format to help the people to learn God’s Word, and better communicate even among the native Indians. John Eliot had previously translated the Hebrew text of the Old Testament book of Psalms into English meter, and that would be the first book printed in British America in 1640, called the Bay Psalms book. This would be the Puritans’ songbook for many decades to come, and it too would be translated for the numerous tribes living in New England.