THE MAORI BIBLE                  

BY THE VERY REV. J. G. LAUGHTON 

 

The story of the Maori Bible is interesting in more ways than one. Of course, it appeals to the religious community; but it also has something for scholars of language and literature. In a way, the reduction of the Maori language to a written form parallels with the work of the early translators of Holy Writ into the English tongue, and in a way again it leads from their efforts.

 

Of course, it is not true that the work of the European grammarians and linguists has developed the Maori language to its present capacity as a vehicle for human thought. The Maori language had evolved to that standard before the first white man ever sighted these shores. The language abounded with poetry of rare beauty, and through the common speech ran metaphors and similes and pictures of the mind. The aristocratic and priestly class of the whare-wananga, the sacred school of learning, had developed religious concepts in the Maori tongue which were deeply abstract, and in many ways these concepts resembled those of the Hebrews in whose speech two-thirds of the Scriptures were first transcribed. The Maori language was fully capable of formulating and expressing these ideas. The language, melodious but unknown, which fell upon the ears of Marsden and his men when they first set foot in New Zealand was a full-grown oracle of legend and poetry, genealogy and religious concept. But at this stage it was only a spoken language.

 

We can imagine the search for the first few words which would give access to even the outer lobby of the language house of a people's mind. The credit for taking that first bridgehead in the wide territory of the Maori language belongs to Thomas Kendall, one of Marsden's earliest band of missionaries. Kendall had been a London schoolmaster, and he is credited with doing the first great service of reducing the Maori language to a written form. Kendall's book was printed in Sydney in 1815, and was a great help to Professor Samuel Lee in compiling the first Maori grammar and vocabulary.

 

EARLY PRINTINGS OF THE SCRIPTURES

 

Kendall's book was the bridgehead, and the missionaries then began the immense task of translation. The first Scriptures in Maori came from the press in Sydney in August, 1827. These were six chapters—four from the Old Testament and two from the New, with the Lord's Prayer and seven hymns. In July, 1830, in Sydney, a further book was printed containing other short extracts from the Old and New Testaments, some prayers, a catechism and some nineteen hymns.

 

In 1833 William Yate, of the Church Missionary Society, superintended the printing in Sydney of 1, 800 copies of the first and fourth Gospels, the Acts, the Epistle to the Romans, the First Epistle to the Corinthians, and eight chapters of Genesis.

 

The year 1835 was a milestone in the history of the Maori Scriptures, for in that year a printing press was landed at Paihia, and William Colenso undertook the printing.

 

Colenso speaks of some of his difficulties. When the packages were brought ashore it was found that some essential equipment had not been included. This had to be improvised out of local wood and stone. Most serious of all, by a curious oversight, no paper had been sent with the press. The wives of the missionaries came to the rescue and brought forward their own supplies of writing paper, sufficient to produce immediately 2.000 copies of the Epistles to the Ephesians and the Philippians. They were the first books to be published in New Zealand.

 

A complete edition of the New Testament was issued at Paihia by the Church Mission in 1837. This had engaged the attention of the entire Mission community during the preceding seven years.

 

The translation of the New Testament was chiefly due to the remarkable linguistic capacity of William Williams. Later Robert Maunsell did similar service in assisting to complete the Old Testament. When we remember that these first translations were made from the Greek and Hebrew into Maori which today stands so high in idiomatic purity, we recognise the industry and profound scholarship which enabled these early translators to bring it to such perfection.

 

WILLIAMS, MAUNSELL, HOBBS

 

Each and every one of the missionaries had a part in the work of translation, but special honour must be given to William Williams and Dr. Maunsell, of the Church of England, and to John Hobbs, Thomas Buddle and Alexander Reid, of the Wesleyan Mission. From 1836, the Press of the Wesleyan Mission printed Hobbs's translation of the book of Job and an edition of 6, 000 copies of “Translations from the Old Testament.” Hobbs was a master of idiomatic Maori.

 

The Rev. Robert Maunsell set to work translating the Old Testament within a year of his arrival at the Bay of Islands. Many stories are told of the pains Maunsell took to perfect himself in the use of Maori words. He would slip quietly into a pa and sit listening to conversations. Later he offered small rewards to any Maori who could prove him wrong in his use of Maori words.

 

Disaster overtook this tireless worker. Twice within a fortnight in 1843 his quarters on the lonely mission station to which he had moved were destroyed by fire, and his precious translations were destroyed. Many men would have thrown up the task in despair. After a few weeks this great man began his work all over again.

 

The Old Testament, chiefly the work of Mr. Maunsell, was first issued in three separate volumes; but in 1856 a Board of Revision set to work, and three years later prepared for an issue of the whole Bible in one volume. But it wasn't until 1862 that a fully revised copy was sent to London, and only in 1868 that the first Maori Bible in a single volume left the press.

 

The second edition of the complete Bible was the result of a revision of the text by Archdeacon Maunsell and Archdeacon W. L. Williams. This was issued in 1887, and remained the standard version until 1924, when a further revision by Bishop Herbert Williams was completed and published. This third complete Maori Bible is now out of print and a still further revision is being prepared. The 1924 edition, which was a standard of Maori diction, was unfortunately marred by many typographical errors.

 

The present revision is being carried out under the supervision of the British and Foreign Bible Society. For revising, the Bible was divided into sections and thoroughly proof-read twice over by a panel of ten outstanding Maori scholars. In March, 1946, a conference of representative scholars met to review their corrections and to determine the question of proposed amendments and the general format of the new volume.

 

The reports of the proof readers raised the question of whether something far more extensive than a mere correction of typographical errors was not called for. It was the first time that a body of scholars from the Maori race itself had been engaged in a careful review of the text of the Maori Scriptures. From them chiefly came the suggestions for clearing up obscure passages. Then there were numerous passages in which the translation, while correct, could be immensely improved to Maori ears by giving it a more characteristically Maori turn of idiom. The members of the conference also felt that the alternative reading of the English revised version should be followed as a basis for the revised translation in many passages. Fully realising how great an undertaking it was applying itself to, the conference decided that a full revision of the whole Maori Bible should be made before the next publication, and appointed a Revision Committee.

 

INTEREST OF MAORI PEOPLE

 

In the intervening months members of the committee have worked steadily at the task of revision. Various portions of the text have been assigned to the different members who have prepared revised scripts, and these in turn submitted to the full committee at the five sessions which have been held since March, 1946. The revision of the New Testament has been completed, and at the session which has just ended in Wellington the committee has been engaged on the revision of the books of Genesis and Psalms in the Old Testament.

 

Perhaps the most encouraging feature of this whole movement to revise the Maori Bible is the deep interest which the Maori people everywhere have taken in it. Not only are they subscribing funds. They are keenly interested in the work which the committee is doing. No edition of the Maori Bible since the first has been looked forward to with such eagerness as the one at present being prepared. Maori minds and money and devotion are being given to it. In a new sense it will be the Maori Bible. Some of the funds subscribed have come from groups of Sunday schools, and public school children.

 

These tokens hearten the committee in work which often calls for long and concentrated research into the meaning of a single word, or the right turn of a single phrase. The members of the committee are working for the generation which these children represent. The new Maori Bible, which is the product of over a century of scholarship, will bring them, and the generations after them, the Holy Scriptures in their mother tongue.

 

Journal of the Polynesian Society, 1947, Volume 56, No. 3, pp 290 – 294

 

This article was broadcast by the National network of stations on 3 August, 1947