The history of the translation of the Bible into Bahasa Malaysia
Robert A. Hunt’s 1989 article traces the nearly four-century history of Bible translation into Malay, from the first Dutch East India Company-sponsored gospels of the 1630s to the dynamic equivalence “Today’s Malay Version” of the 1970s. The central argument is that linguistic, institutional, and political forces—rather than any single mission strategy—shaped each successive translation, with recurring dilemmas over idiom, dialect, spelling, and the relationship between Christian and Islamic vocabulary.
Summary
Hunt organizes the narrative into three broad eras. The Dutch period (1628–1733) produced the Leidekker Bible, which remained the standard translation for nearly two centuries. The British missionary period (1814–1916) was dominated by the figure of Munshi Abdullah, whose linguistic authority shaped every translation attempt from Claudius Thomsen through Benjamin Keasberry to William Shellabear, even though his contribution was rarely acknowledged publicly. The modern era (1924 onward) saw attempts at a “union version” between the British and Dutch Bible Societies, ultimately derailed by Shellabear’s opposition and then by World War II, before giving way to the dynamic equivalence method that produced the current Bahasa Malaysia Bible.
The core problems identified throughout are threefold: establishing standards for the language (spelling, dialect, vocabulary); finding appropriate ways to express Biblical concepts within the Malay-Islamic cultural context; and determining targets and means of distribution. Hunt argues that the translations were shaped by the linguistic ability of translators in both Malay and the original languages, their understanding of the cultural milieu, the relationships between Bible Societies and colonial governments, and changes in the political environment. A persistent tension ran between the “high” Malay of the courts and literature and the “low” Malay of everyday speech, a problem that never reached full resolution before the creation of national languages in the post-independence period.
Primary sources include the minutes of the Bible Society of Britain and Foreign Parts (held at Cambridge University Library), Shellabear’s unpublished autobiography at Hartford Seminary, and publications of the Indonesian Bible Society. These institutional records allow Hunt to reconstruct the disputes over spelling conventions, publication rights, and the perceived need for new translations—disputes that often revealed commercial interests overshadowing linguistic or theological concerns.
Key Findings
- The first complete Malay New Testament was published in 1662, translated by Rev. Daniel Brower under VOC sponsorship; the first complete Bible (Leidekker) was published in 1733 in Roman script and 1758 in Jawi script, remaining standard until 1916 in Indonesia and 1853 in Malaysia (pp. 35–37).
- Keasberry’s New Testament, published in 1852 (Roman script) and 1856 (Jawi), was distributed across Peninsular Malaysia, Sumatra, and Borneo; it marked the end of an era defined by Munshi Abdullah’s influence (pp. 40–41).
- Shellabear’s New Testament was completed in 1904 and his Old Testament in 1909 (published 1912); a Baba Malay New Testament for the Straits Chinese followed in 1913 (pp. 43–47).
- From 1882, the Bible Society distributed 280,000 almanacs containing scripture quotations, though no evidence of extensive influence was ever recorded (p. 41).
- The Bode “union version” New Testament was published in 1938 after a three-year delay caused by Shellabear’s opposition; World War II halted Old Testament work, and only Psalms was published in 1947 (pp. 48–51).
- The “Today’s Malay Version” (dynamic equivalence method) was commissioned in 1969; the New Testament appeared in 1974 (revised 1976) and the complete Bible was published in 1987 (pp. 51–52).
Conclusion
Hunt’s definitive historical takeaway is that the translation of the Bible into Malay has always represented a major point of contact between Christianity and Islam in the Malay world. The necessity of using loanwords from Arabic and Persian to express Christian concepts reveals points of cultural contact that are distinctly religious in nature, and this relationship demands serious and sustained attention as Bahasa Malaysia continues to evolve.
Context
- Primary archival collections: Bible Society of Britain and Foreign Parts Archives (Cambridge University Library), Shellabear Papers (Hartford Seminary Library), and ABCFM papers (Houghton Library, Harvard University) (p. 53).
- The article’s historiographical contribution lies in synthesizing institutional records with linguistic analysis to fill a gap in the history of Malay Christian literature, and in foregrounding the role of Malay-language consultants (Abdullah, Guru Sleiman, Ehe Mashohor) who are largely absent from the historical record.