The Gaelic Bible: Scripture in the Language of the Gàidhealtachd

Each major claim carries one of three labels. established means supported by primary records, official bodies or several independent reliable sources. shared means the core fact is sound but sources disagree on details, dates or interpretation. traditional means widely repeated but not traceable to a primary or independent source.

The publication dates of the Gaelic scriptures are well documented. The extent of the SSPCK's earlier hostility to Gaelic is debated, and the card describes it in general terms.

Before the Gaelic Bible

established The first book printed in Gaelic was John Carswell's translation of the Reformed Book of Common Order, printed in Edinburgh in 1567 in Classical Gaelic, the literary language shared with Ireland. The Bible, however, remained unavailable in Scottish Gaelic for two centuries. Gaelic-speaking ministers used Irish translations. In 1690 Robert Kirk, minister of Aberfoyle, oversaw an edition of the Irish Bible in Roman type to make it easier for Highlanders to read. Metrical psalms in Gaelic were published by the Synod of Argyll in 1659 and 1694, and Kirk published his own complete psalter in 1684.

The SSPCK

established The Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge, founded in 1709, set up charity schools across the Highlands. For much of its early history it taught only in English and discouraged the use of Gaelic, seeing English as a means of "civilising" the Highlands. By the mid-eighteenth century, it became clear that children who did not understand English were learning little, and the Society changed course.

James Stuart's New Testament

established The SSPCK commissioned James Stuart, minister of Killin in Perthshire, to translate the New Testament into Scottish Gaelic, with help from Dugald Buchanan, the Gaelic poet and teacher. It was published in 1767. It was a landmark: the first major text in the Gaelic of Scotland rather than the classical language shared with Ireland.

The Old Testament

established The Old Testament was translated in parts, mainly by John Stuart, James's son and minister of Luss, with others, and published between 1783 and 1801. The complete Gaelic Bible appeared in 1801, and revised editions followed through the nineteenth century.

established The last volume of the Old Testament, printed in 1801 for the SSPCK, came from Balfour, Auld & Smellie, Printers to the University of Edinburgh. The same firm had printed the 1767 New Testament and stayed with the project through the forty years the Old Testament took to translate. From 1807 the complete Scottish Gaelic Bible was available in a single volume. By the 1820s the Edinburgh Bible Society, later the National Bible Society of Scotland, had taken over its publication, with Anderson & Bryce as printers.

The Bible in the Gaelic book trade

established The Bible set the pattern for Gaelic printing for the rest of the century. Donald Meek estimates that some 75 per cent of Gaelic books published between 1800 and 1880 were religious. Alongside the Bible, the steadiest sellers were the Shorter Catechism, the hymns of Dugald Buchanan, who had helped James Stuart with the New Testament, and Gaelic translations of Bunyan and Baxter. In 1846 the Edinburgh publishers MacLachlan & Stewart, the leading Gaelic house of their day, listed a quarto calf-bound copy of the 1826 Gaelic Bible at 25 shillings, against an average of about 2 shillings for a translated Puritan classic.

established Catholic Gaels were less well served. Ewen MacEachen's Catholic translation of the New Testament was printed in Aberdeen in 1875, and Catholic doctrinal books in Gaelic were often printed abroad, several of them in Nova Scotia.

A book that shaped a language

established The Gaelic Bible became the most widely read book in Gaelic and set the standard for written Scottish Gaelic, its spelling and grammar. In the nineteenth century the Gaelic schools societies, beginning with the Edinburgh Society for the Support of Gaelic Schools, founded in 1811 at the instance of the Baptist minister Christopher Anderson, taught thousands of Highlanders to read Gaelic so that they could read the scriptures. Anderson, with Alexander MacLaren, produced readers and textbooks for these schools, and the Bible was their foundation. The Bible's language shaped Gaelic prose and preaching for generations, and revised versions remain in use.

Kirk's Bible and the first map of Gaelic Scotland

established The story of Kirk's Bible is told in detail by the historical geographer Charles Withers in Gaelic in Scotland 1698–1981 (1984). In 1688 the minister James Kirkwood received 207 copies of Bishop Bedell's Irish Old Testament from Robert Boyle, enough for "one for each highland parish and seven for the bishops". Because they were printed in the Irish type, which few Highlanders could read, Robert Kirk spent about a year and a half transcribing the whole Bible into Roman letters. The new edition appeared on 1 April 1690, and Kirkwood greeted it with the words "At last ye Bibles are printed, Blessed be God". Kirk died in 1692.

established Distribution was slow. Many ministers did not know how to obtain copies, and some presbyteries were still waiting in 1704 and 1707; in 1710 about eighty Old Testaments left in Edinburgh were given to the university libraries. By 1698, however, about 1,770 Bibles, 420 New Testaments and 540 catechisms had reached the Highlands. Kirkwood's lists of the parishes due to receive them, which name 180 parishes, give the earliest detailed picture of where Gaelic was spoken.

shared Withers gives the size of the 1690 edition differently in two places, as 3,000 Bibles and as 300 complete Bibles, with 1,000 New Testaments and 3,000 catechisms. The number of Bibles printed is best treated as uncertain.

established Kirkwood wanted the Bibles used to teach children to read in Gaelic. The General Assembly allowed them only in church, and the parish and charity schools of the next half-century taught reading in English alone.

Reading Gaelic, learning English

established The Gaelic schools of the nineteenth century, whose main text was the Bible, taught more than 100,000 people to read Gaelic by about 1861. In its first twenty years the Edinburgh society sent 67,400 Bibles, New Testaments and psalm books to the Highlands. Even so, only about 350 books had been printed in Gaelic by 1850, and about three-quarters of them had appeared after 1800.

shared Withers argues that Gaelic Bible-reading had a double effect. It deepened the attachment to Gaelic as the language of worship and fed the religious revivals of the early nineteenth century; but it also made people eager to learn English. In 1833 the Rev. Dr Macleod wrote that English reading and speaking had made more progress in the Highlands in the twenty years of Gaelic teaching "than it did for centuries before then". The SSPCK said openly in 1825 that its new Gaelic Bible was meant to hold out an English education as "a premium" to those who mastered their own language.

• The first book printed in Gaelic appeared in 1567.
• Highlanders used Irish Bibles until the eighteenth century.
• The SSPCK once discouraged Gaelic in its schools.
• The Gaelic New Testament appeared in 1767.
• The complete Gaelic Bible was published in 1801.
• The complete Gaelic Bible could be bought in a single volume from 1807.
• About three Gaelic books in four published between 1800 and 1880 were religious.
• Robert Kirk transcribed the whole Irish Bible into Roman letters in about a year and a half.
• The lists drawn up to distribute Kirk's Bibles are the earliest detailed record of where Gaelic was spoken.
• Only about 350 books had been printed in Gaelic by 1850.

• Myth: Carswell's 1567 book was the first Gaelic Bible. It was a translation of the Reformed Book of Common Order, a service book, and the first book printed in any form of Gaelic. The Bible remained unavailable in Scottish Gaelic for two centuries more.
• Myth: the SSPCK was always hostile to Gaelic. For much of its early history it taught only in English and discouraged Gaelic, but its policy changed. In 1766 it decided that pupils in Gaelic areas should learn to read Gaelic as well as English, and it published the New Testament in 1767.
• Myth: the complete Gaelic Bible appeared in one volume in 1801. The last volume of the Old Testament was printed in 1801, and the complete Bible was available in a single volume from 1807.
• Disputed: how many Bibles were in Robert Kirk's 1690 edition. Charles Withers gives the size of the edition differently in two places, as 3,000 Bibles and as 300 complete Bibles with 1,000 New Testaments and 3,000 catechisms. The number is best treated as uncertain.
• Disputed: whether Gaelic Bible-reading held back English. Withers argues that it had a double effect: it deepened the attachment to Gaelic as the language of worship, but it also made people eager to learn English.