Ritröð Guðfræðistofnunar - 01.09.1990, Síða 133

„Engill - sendur frá himni!”
markmið en þetta: Að koma Guðs orði í hendur íslenzkrar þjóðar og
hjálpa til við að ljúka því upp fyrir almennum biblíulesanda.
Þann veg getum við bezt heiðrað minningu þessa mæta íslandsvina.,
sem kom sem „engill, sendur frá himni” til íslands.
Summary
One hundred seventy-five years have elapsed since the foundation of the
Icelandic Bible Society in 1815. This article presents some glimpses into
the life of Ebenezer Henderson, the Scottish founder of that society.
Henderson's life is traced from the time he abandoned his studies in
cobblery in Dunfermline, Scotland, and decided to become a Christian
missionary.
In 1804, when he was only twenty years of age, Henderson traveled to
Copenhagen on his way to take up a missionary assignment in India. But
after missing his ship to India, he became interested in Iceland where, he
had heard, copies of the Bible were seldom seen among the fifty thousand
souls dwelling there. Ten years went by, however, before Henderson
found his way to Iceland, in large part because Denmark and England
were at war.
In 1814, Henderson finally joumeyed to Iceland, and with gifts in
hand; for by that time the British and Foreign Bible Society had arranged
for large printings of both the New Testament and the complete Bible in
Icelandic editions. The Word of God now became available to the
Icelandic public for the first time in the nation's history. Henderson
traveled extensively around Iceland—some 4,400 kilometers in all,
mostly without roads—and, in the years 1814-1815, wrote a remarkable
book about his introduction to the land and its people: Iceland or the
Journal of Residence. He attended a synod in the summer of 1815, at
which his proposal for the establishment of an Icelandic Bible society was
approved. He distributed 4,050 Bibles in Iceland and 6,634 copies of the
New Testament. He later described his stay in Iceland as „the two
happiest years of my life.”..
The author of the article urges, in closing, that the founding of the
Icelandic Bible Society be remembered by supporting its work, in
particular the new translation of the Old Testament which is scheduled
for publication in the year 2000, the millenary year of the adoption of
the Christian faith by the Icelanders.
131