Adoniram Judson
Encyclopedia
Adoniram Judson, Jr. was an American Baptist
missionary, who served in Burma for almost forty years. At the age of 25, Adoniram Judson became the first Protestant missionary
sent from North America
to preach in Burma. His mission and work led to the formation of the first Baptist association in America, inspired many Americans to become or support missionaries, translated the Bible
into Burmese
, and established a number of Baptist churches in Burma.
At times mistakenly referred to as the first missionary to Burma, he was in fact preceded by James Chater and Richard Mardon who arrived in 1807. They were followed by Felix Carey. However, since those who came earlier did not remain very long, Judson is remembered as the first significant missionary there, as well as one of the group of the very first missionaries from America to travel overseas.
Judson was born on 9 August 1788 in Malden
, Middlesex County, Massachusetts
. He was the son of a Congregational minister, Adoniram Judson, Sr. and his wife, Abigail (née Brown). Judson entered the College of Rhode Island & Providence Plantations (now Brown University
) at the age of sixteen, and graduated as valedictorian of his class at the age of nineteen. While studying at college, he met a young man named Jacob Eames, a devout deist and skeptic. Judson and Eames developed a strong friendship, leading to Judson's abandonment of his childhood faith and religious instruction of his parents. During this time, he embraced the writings of the French philosophies. The year following his graduation from college, Judson opened a school and wrote an English grammar and mathematics textbook for girls.
Judson's deist views were shaken when his friend Eames died violently from sickness. Judson was sleeping at an inn, hearing the person next door expiring violently; the next morning he inquired as to his anonymous neighbor's health or outcome. The clerk answered that Mr. Eames had indeed died. The shock of finding it was his own friend – and that Eames had led Judson away from the Christian faith into skepticism, but was now dead – brought Judson back to the faith of his youth. Judson's conversion occurred while attending the Andover Theological Seminary. In 1808, Judson "made a solemn dedication of himself to God". This was followed by his decision to serve as a missionary during his final year of school.
In 1810, Judson joined a group of mission-minded students at Andover who called themselves "the Brethren". The students at Andover inspired the establishment of America's first organized missionary society. He was eager to serve abroad and became convinced that "Asia with its idolatrous myriads, was the most important field in the world for missionary effort". He appeared before the Congregation Church's General Association to appeal for support for their mission. In 1810, impressed by the polite behavior of the four men and their sincerity, the elders voted to form an American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions
.
from Boston, aboard the ship Packet. he was in England to visit the London Missionary Society
. He had made the journey overseas, since a missionary sending agency did not yet exist in America. The trip was complicated by a French privateer
, L'Invincible Napoleon, who captured the ship and took everyone prisoner.
The ship arrived at Le Passage, in Spain, and the prisoners were transferred to Bayonne, France. After a short imprisonment, Judson was released. On April 16, he arrived in Paris, crossed the English Channel
from Morlaix
to Dartmouth
and arrived in London on May 3. He visited the Missionary Seminary at Gosport
, returning to New York aboard the Augustus in August.
On September 19, Judson was appointed by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions as a missionary to the East. Judson was also commissioned by the Congregational Church
, and soon married Ann Hasseltine on February 5, 1812. He was ordained the next day at the Tabernacle Church in Salem. On February 19, he set sail aboard the brig Caravan with Luther Rice
; Samuel and Harriett Newell; and his wife, Ann (known as "Nancy") Judson.
was theologically valid and should be done as a matter of obedience to the command of Jesus .
On September 6, 1812, he switched to the Baptist
denomination along with his wife and they were baptized
by immersion in Calcutta by an English missionary associate of William Carey named William Ward
.
Both the local and British authorities did not want Americans evangelizing Hindus in the area, so the group of missionaries separated and sought other mission fields. They were ordered out of India by the British East India Company
, to whom American missionaries were even less welcome than British (they were baptized in September, and already in June, the United States had declared war on England). The following year, on July 13, 1813, he moved to Burma, and en route his wife miscarried their first child aboard ship.
Judson offered to Baptists in the United States to serve as their missionary. Luther Rice
who had also converted, was in poor health and returned to America where his work and William Carey's urging; resulted in the 1814 formation of the first national Baptist denomination in the United States for Foreign Missions (commonly called the Triennial Convention
) and its offshoot the American Baptist Missionary Union
.
During this time they were almost entirely isolated from contact with any European or American. This was the case for their first three years in Burma. Four years passed before Judson dared even to hold a semi-public service. At first, he tried adapting to Burmese customs by wearing a yellow robe to mark himself as a teacher of religion, but he soon changed to white to show he was not a Buddhist. Then, he gave up the whole attempt as artificial and decided that, regardless of his dress, no Burmese would identify him as anything but a foreigner.
He accommodated to some Burmese customs and built a zayat
, the customary bamboo and thatch reception shelter, on the street near his home as a reception room and meeting place for Burmese men. Fifteen men came to his first public meeting in April 1819. He was encouraged but suspected they had come more out of curiosity than anything else. Their attention wandered, and they soon seemed uninterested. Two months later, he baptized his first Burmese convert, Maung Naw, a 35-year-old timber worker from the hill tribes.
First attempts by the Judsons to interest the natives of Rangoon with the Gospel of Jesus met with almost total indifference. Buddhist traditions and the Burmese world view at that time led many to disregard the pleadings of Adorniram and his wife to believe in one living and all-powerful God. To add to their discouragement, their second child, Roger William Judson, died at almost eight months of age.
Judson completed translation of the Grammatical Notices of the Burman Language the following July and the Gospel of Matthew
, in 1817. Judson began public evangelism
in 1818 sitting in a zayat
by the roadside calling out "Ho! Everyone that thirsteth for knowledge!" The first believer was baptized in 1819, and there were 18 believers by 1822.
In 1820, Judson and a fellow missionary named Colman attempted to petition the Emperor of Burma, King Bagyidaw
, in the hope that he would grant freedom for the missionaries to preach and teach throughout the country, as well as remove the sentence of death that was given for those Burmese who changed religion.
Bagyidaw disregarded their appeal and threw one of their Gospel tracts to the ground after reading a few lines. The missionaries returned to Rangoon and met with the fledgling church there to consider what to do next. The progress of Christianity would continue to be slow with much risk of endangerment and death in the Burmese Empire.
It took Judson 12 years to make 18 converts. Nevertheless, there was much to encourage him. He had written a grammar of the language that is still in use today and had begun to translate the Bible
.
His wife, Ann, was even more fluent in the spoken language of the people than her more academically literate husband. She befriended the wife of the viceroy of Rangoon, as quickly as she did illiterate workers and women.
A printing press had been sent from Serampore, and a missionary printer, George H. Hough, who arrived from America with his wife in 1817, produced the first printed materials in Burmese ever printed in Burma, which included 800 copies of Judson's translation of the Gospel of Matthew
. The chronicler of the church, Maung Shwe Wa, concludes this part of the story, "So was born the church in Rangoon–logger and fisherman, the poor and the rich, men and women. One traveled the whole path to Christ in three days; another took two years. But once they had decided for Christ they were his for all time."
One of the early disciples was U Shwe Ngong, a teacher and leader of a group of intellectuals dissatisfied with Buddhism, who were attracted to the new faith. He was a Deist skeptic to whose mind the preaching of Judson, once a college skeptic himself, was singularly challenging. After consideration, he assured Judson that he was ready to believe in God, Jesus Christ, and the atonement.
Judson, instead of welcoming him to the faith, pressed him further asking if he believed what he had read in the gospel of Matthew that Jesus
the son of God died on the cross. U Shwe Ngong shook his head and said, "Ah, you have caught me now. I believe that he suffered death, but I cannot believe he suffered the shameful death on the cross." Not long after, he came back to tell Judson, "I have been trusting in my own reason, not the word of God…. I now believe the crucifixion of Christ because it is contained in scripture."
The essence of Judson's preaching was a combination of conviction of the truth with the rationality of the Christian faith, a firm belief in the authority of the Bible, and a determination to make Christianity relevant to the Burmese mind without violating the integrity of Christian truth, or as he put it, "to preach the gospel, not anti-Buddhism."
By 1823, ten years after his arrival, membership of the little church had grown to 18, and Judson had finally finished the first draft of his translation of the entire text of the New Testament
in Burmese.
Two irreconcilable hungers triggered the First Anglo-Burmese War of 1824: Burma's desire for more territory, and Britain's desire for more trade. Burma threatened Assam
and Bengal
; Britain responded by attacking and absorbing two Burmese provinces into her India holdings to broaden her trade routes to East Asia. The war was a rough interruption of the Baptists' missionary work. English-speaking Americans were too easily confused with the enemy and suspected of spying.
Judson was imprisoned for 17 months during the war between the United Kingdom
and Burma, first at Ava
and then at Aung Pinle. Judson and Price were violently arrested. Officers led by an official executioner burst into the Judson home, threw Judson to the ground in front of his wife, bound him with torture thongs, and dragged him off to the infamous, vermin
-ridden death prison of Ava
.
Twelve agonizing months later, Judson and Price, along with a small group of surviving Western prisoners, were marched overland, barefoot and sick, for six more months of misery in a primitive village near Mandalay
. Of the sepoy
British prisoners-of-war imprisoned with them, all but one died.
The sufferings and brutalities of those 20 long months and days in prison, half-starved, iron-fettered, and sometimes trussed and suspended by his mangled feet with only head and shoulders touching the ground is described in detail by his wife, shortly after his release.
Ann was perhaps the greater model of supreme courage. Heedless to all threats against herself, left alone as the only Western woman in an absolute and anti-Christian monarchy at war with the West, beset with raging fevers and nursing a tiny baby that her husband had not yet seen, she rushed from office to office in desperate attempts to keep her husband alive and win his freedom.
The end of the war should have been a time of rejoicing for the mission. As soon as her husband was released by the Burmese, Ann wrote that one good result of the war could be that terms of the treaty which ceded Burmese provinces to the British might provide opportunity to expand the witness of the mission into unreached parts of the country.
On October 24, 1826, Ann died at Amherst (now Kyaikkami
), Burma, a victim of the long, dreadful months of disease, death, stress and loneliness that had been hers for 21 months. Their third child died six months later. She died while her husband was out exploring the ceded province of Tenasserim. It was in the wild hills of that newly British province of Tenasserim that the first signs of rapid growth in Protestant Christianity in Burma began. Within a few years of the end of the war, Baptist membership doubled on an average of every eight years for the 32 years between 1834 and 1866.
The collapse of Burma's armies brought Judson out of prison, but his release was not complete freedom. In 1826, several months after the surrender, Burma pressed Judson into service as a translator for the peace negotiations. Some have used Judson's acceptance of a role in the treaty negotiations as evidence of complicity in imperialism
, but it should be noted that he first acted on behalf of the defeated Burmese as translator, not for the Western victors.
Three significant factors had a part, though not the only part, in the rise of the Burmese Baptist churches. Most of the growth was in British-ruled territory, rather than the Burmese-ruled kingdom. It may also be significant that after an Anglo-Burmese war, the missionaries were American, not British. The most telling factor was religion. Most of the growth came from animist tribes, rather than from the major population group, the Buddhist Burmese. The first Burmese pastor he ordained was Ko-Thah-a, one of the original group of converts, who refounded the church at Rangoon.
While the nation was Burmese, a lost province of Great Britain, and the missionaries were American, the apostle of that first numerically significant evangelistic breakthrough was neither Burman, British, nor American. He was a Karen
, Ko Tha Byu
. Credit is due also to the three missionary pioneers to the Karen people, George Boardman
and his wife, Sarah; and Adoniram Judson.
The Karen people were a primitive, hunted minority group of ancient Tibeto-Burman ancestry scattered in the forests and jungles of the Salween River
and in the hills along the southeast coast. Judson was the first missionary to make contact with them in 1827, when he ransomed and freed a debt-slave from one of his early converts. The freed slave, Ko Tha Byu, was an illiterate, surly man who spoke almost no Burmese and was reputed to be not only a thief, but also a murderer who admitted killing at least 30 men, but could not remember exactly how many more.
In 1828, the former Karen bandit, "whose rough, undisciplined genius, energy and zeal for Christ" had caught the notice of the missionaries, was sent south with a new missionary couple, the Boardmans, into the territory of the strongly animistic, non-Buddhist Karen. Ko Tha Byu was no sooner baptized, when he set off into the jungle alone to preach to his fellow tribe members. Astonishingly, he found them prepared for his preaching. Their ancient oracle traditions, handed down for centuries, contained some startling echoes of the Old Testament
that some scholars conjecture a linkage with Jewish communities (or possibly even Nestorians), before their migrations from western China into Burma perhaps as early as the 12th century.
The core of what they called their "Tradition of the Elders" was a belief in an unchangeable, eternal, all-powerful God, creator of heaven and earth, of man, and of woman formed from a rib taken from the man. They believed in humanity's temptation by a devil, and its fall, and that some day a messiah would come to its rescue. They lived in expectation of a prophecy that white foreigners would bring them a sacred parchment roll.
While the Boardmans and Ko Tha Byu were penetrating the jungles to the south, Judson shook off a paralyzing year-long siege of depression that overcame him after the death of his wife and set out alone on long canoe trips up the Salween River into the tiger
-infested jungles to evangelize the northern Karen. Between trips, he worked unceasingly at his lifelong goal of translating the entire Bible into Burmese. When he finished it at last in 1834, he had been labouring on it for 24 years. It was printed and published in 1835.
In April of that same year, he married Sarah Hall Boardman
, widow of fellow missionary George Boardman
. They had eight children, five of whom survived to adulthood. Sarah's health began failing and physicians recommended a return to America. Sarah died en route at
St. Helena on September 1, 1845. He continued home, where he was greeted as a celebrity and toured the eastern seaboard raising the profile of and money for missionary activity. Because he could barely speak above a whisper, due to pulmonary illness, his public addresses were made by speaking to an assistant, who would then address the audience.
On June 2, 1846, Judson married for the third time, to writer Emily Chubbuck
, who he had commissioned to write memoirs for Sarah Hall Boardman. They had a daughter born in 1847.
Judson lived to approve and welcome the first single women as missionaries to Burma. A general rule of the mission had hitherto prevented such appointments. Judson said it was "probably a good rule, but our minds should not be closed" to making exceptions. The first two exceptions were extraordinary.
Sarah Cummings arrived in 1832. Cummings proved her mettle at once, choosing to work alone with Karen evangelists in the malaria
-ridden Salween River valley north of Moulmein, but within two years she died of fever.
In 1835, a second single woman, Eleanor Macomber, after five years of mission to the Ojibway Indians in Michigan
, joined the mission in Burma. Alone, with the help of Karen evangelistic assistants, she planted a church in a remote Karen village and nurtured it to the point where it could be placed under the care of an ordinary missionary. She lived five years and died of jungle fever.
Judson developed a serious lung disease and doctors prescribed a sea voyage as a cure. On April 12, 1850, he died at age 61 onboard ship in the Bay of Bengal
and was buried at sea, having spent 37 years in missionary service abroad with only one trip back home to America. A memorial to Judson was built on Burial Hill
in Plymouth, Massachusetts.
When Judson began his mission in Burma, he set a goal of translating the Bible and founding a church of 100 members before his death. When he died, he left the Bible, 100 churches, and over 8,000 believers. In large part due to his influence, Myanmar
has the third largest number of Baptists worldwide, behind the United States and India. The majority of adherents are Karen
and Kachin
.
Each July, Baptist churches in Myanmar celebrate "Judson Day," commemorating his arrival as a missionary. Inside the campus of Yangon University is Judson Church, named in his honor, and in 1920 Judson College, named in his honor, merged into Rangoon College, which has since been renamed Yangon University.
Judson compiled the first ever Burmese-English
dictionary. The English-Burmese half was interrupted by his death and completed by missionary E. A. Steven. Every dictionary and grammar written in Burma in the last two centuries has been based on ones originally created by Judson. Judson "became a symbol of the preeminence of Bible translation for" Protestant missionaries.
In the 1950s, Burma's Buddhist prime minister U Nu
told the Burma Christian Council "Oh no, a new translation is not necessary. Judson's captures the language and idiom of Burmese perfectly and is very clear and understandable." His translation remains the most popular version in Myanmar.
His change of persuasion to the validity of believer's baptism
, and subsequent need of support, led to the founding of the first national Baptist organization in the United States and subsequently to all American Baptist associations, including the Southern Baptists
that were the first to break off from the national organization. The printing of his wife Ann's letters about their mission inspired many Americans to become or support Christian missionaries. There are at least 36 Baptist churches in the United States named after him, Judson University in Illinois is named after him and Judson College in Alabama
is named after his wife Ann.
At his alma mater, Brown University, there is a house named after him, which is owned by Christian Union.
Judson is honored with a feast day on the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church (USA)
on April 12.
Baptist
Baptists comprise a group of Christian denominations and churches that subscribe to a doctrine that baptism should be performed only for professing believers , and that it must be done by immersion...
missionary, who served in Burma for almost forty years. At the age of 25, Adoniram Judson became the first Protestant missionary
Missionary
A missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to do evangelism or ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care and economic development. The word "mission" originates from 1598 when the Jesuits sent members abroad, derived from the Latin...
sent from North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
to preach in Burma. His mission and work led to the formation of the first Baptist association in America, inspired many Americans to become or support missionaries, translated the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
into Burmese
Burmese language
The Burmese language is the official language of Burma. Although the constitution officially recognizes it as the Myanmar language, most English speakers continue to refer to the language as Burmese. Burmese is the native language of the Bamar and related sub-ethnic groups of the Bamar, as well as...
, and established a number of Baptist churches in Burma.
At times mistakenly referred to as the first missionary to Burma, he was in fact preceded by James Chater and Richard Mardon who arrived in 1807. They were followed by Felix Carey. However, since those who came earlier did not remain very long, Judson is remembered as the first significant missionary there, as well as one of the group of the very first missionaries from America to travel overseas.
Early life
Malden, Massachusetts
Malden is a suburban city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 59,450 at the 2010 census. In 2009 Malden was ranked as the "Best Place to Raise Your Kids" in Massachusetts by Bloomberg Businessweek Magazine.-History:...
, Middlesex County, Massachusetts
Middlesex County, Massachusetts
-National protected areas:* Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge* Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge* Longfellow National Historic Site* Lowell National Historical Park* Minute Man National Historical Park* Oxbow National Wildlife Refuge...
. He was the son of a Congregational minister, Adoniram Judson, Sr. and his wife, Abigail (née Brown). Judson entered the College of Rhode Island & Providence Plantations (now Brown University
Brown University
Brown University is a private, Ivy League university located in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. Founded in 1764 prior to American independence from the British Empire as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations early in the reign of King George III ,...
) at the age of sixteen, and graduated as valedictorian of his class at the age of nineteen. While studying at college, he met a young man named Jacob Eames, a devout deist and skeptic. Judson and Eames developed a strong friendship, leading to Judson's abandonment of his childhood faith and religious instruction of his parents. During this time, he embraced the writings of the French philosophies. The year following his graduation from college, Judson opened a school and wrote an English grammar and mathematics textbook for girls.
Judson's deist views were shaken when his friend Eames died violently from sickness. Judson was sleeping at an inn, hearing the person next door expiring violently; the next morning he inquired as to his anonymous neighbor's health or outcome. The clerk answered that Mr. Eames had indeed died. The shock of finding it was his own friend – and that Eames had led Judson away from the Christian faith into skepticism, but was now dead – brought Judson back to the faith of his youth. Judson's conversion occurred while attending the Andover Theological Seminary. In 1808, Judson "made a solemn dedication of himself to God". This was followed by his decision to serve as a missionary during his final year of school.
In 1810, Judson joined a group of mission-minded students at Andover who called themselves "the Brethren". The students at Andover inspired the establishment of America's first organized missionary society. He was eager to serve abroad and became convinced that "Asia with its idolatrous myriads, was the most important field in the world for missionary effort". He appeared before the Congregation Church's General Association to appeal for support for their mission. In 1810, impressed by the polite behavior of the four men and their sincerity, the elders voted to form an American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions
American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions
The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions was the first American Christian foreign mission agency. It was proposed in 1810 by recent graduates of Williams College and officially chartered in 1812. In 1961 it merged with other societies to form the United Church Board for World...
.
Voyage to London
On January 11, 1811 Judson arrived in LiverpoolLiverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
from Boston, aboard the ship Packet. he was in England to visit the London Missionary Society
London Missionary Society
The London Missionary Society was a non-denominational missionary society formed in England in 1795 by evangelical Anglicans and Nonconformists, largely Congregationalist in outlook, with missions in the islands of the South Pacific and Africa...
. He had made the journey overseas, since a missionary sending agency did not yet exist in America. The trip was complicated by a French privateer
Privateer
A privateer is a private person or ship authorized by a government by letters of marque to attack foreign shipping during wartime. Privateering was a way of mobilizing armed ships and sailors without having to spend public money or commit naval officers...
, L'Invincible Napoleon, who captured the ship and took everyone prisoner.
The ship arrived at Le Passage, in Spain, and the prisoners were transferred to Bayonne, France. After a short imprisonment, Judson was released. On April 16, he arrived in Paris, crossed the English Channel
English Channel
The English Channel , often referred to simply as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to in the Strait of Dover...
from Morlaix
Morlaix
Morlaix is a commune in the Finistère department of Brittany in northwestern France. It is a sub-prefecture of the department.-Leisure and tourism:...
to Dartmouth
Dartmouth, Devon
Dartmouth is a town and civil parish in the English county of Devon. It is a tourist destination set on the banks of the estuary of the River Dart, which is a long narrow tidal ria that runs inland as far as Totnes...
and arrived in London on May 3. He visited the Missionary Seminary at Gosport
Gosport
Gosport is a town, district and borough situated on the south coast of England, within the county of Hampshire. It has approximately 80,000 permanent residents with a further 5,000-10,000 during the summer months...
, returning to New York aboard the Augustus in August.
Commissioning and marriage
Congregational church
Congregational churches are Protestant Christian churches practicing Congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently and autonomously runs its own affairs....
, and soon married Ann Hasseltine on February 5, 1812. He was ordained the next day at the Tabernacle Church in Salem. On February 19, he set sail aboard the brig Caravan with Luther Rice
Luther Rice
Luther Rice , was a Baptist minister and missionary to India, who helped form a missionary-sending body that became the modern Cooperative Program of the Southern Baptist Convention...
; Samuel and Harriett Newell; and his wife, Ann (known as "Nancy") Judson.
Voyage to India
The Judsons arrived in Calcutta on June 17, 1812. While aboard ship on route to India, he did a focused study on the theology of baptism. He came to the position that believer's baptismBeliever's baptism
Believer's baptism is the Christian practice of baptism as this is understood by many Protestant churches, particularly those that descend from the Anabaptist tradition...
was theologically valid and should be done as a matter of obedience to the command of Jesus .
On September 6, 1812, he switched to the Baptist
Baptist
Baptists comprise a group of Christian denominations and churches that subscribe to a doctrine that baptism should be performed only for professing believers , and that it must be done by immersion...
denomination along with his wife and they were baptized
Baptism
In Christianity, baptism is for the majority the rite of admission , almost invariably with the use of water, into the Christian Church generally and also membership of a particular church tradition...
by immersion in Calcutta by an English missionary associate of William Carey named William Ward
William Ward (missionary)
William Ward was an English pioneer Baptist missionary, author, printer and translator. On 10 May 1802 he was married at Serampore to the widow of John Fountain, another missionary, by whom he left two daughters.-Early life:...
.
Both the local and British authorities did not want Americans evangelizing Hindus in the area, so the group of missionaries separated and sought other mission fields. They were ordered out of India by the British East India Company
British East India Company
The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
, to whom American missionaries were even less welcome than British (they were baptized in September, and already in June, the United States had declared war on England). The following year, on July 13, 1813, he moved to Burma, and en route his wife miscarried their first child aboard ship.
Judson offered to Baptists in the United States to serve as their missionary. Luther Rice
Luther Rice
Luther Rice , was a Baptist minister and missionary to India, who helped form a missionary-sending body that became the modern Cooperative Program of the Southern Baptist Convention...
who had also converted, was in poor health and returned to America where his work and William Carey's urging; resulted in the 1814 formation of the first national Baptist denomination in the United States for Foreign Missions (commonly called the Triennial Convention
Triennial Convention
The Triennial Convention, founded in 1814, was the first national Baptist denomination in the United States of America. Headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, it was formed to advance missionary work...
) and its offshoot the American Baptist Missionary Union
American Baptist Missionary Union
American Baptist Missionary Union is an international Protestant Christian missionary society founded in 1814 in the United States...
.
Missionaries in Burma
It was another difficult year before the Judsons finally reached their intended destination, Burma. Buddhist Burma, Judson was told by the Serampore Baptists, was impermeable to Christian evangelism. Judson, who already knew Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, immediately began studying the Burmese grammar but took over three years learning to speak it. This was due, in part, to the radical difference in structure between Burmese and that of Western languages. He found a tutor and spent twelve hours per day studying the language. He and his wife firmly dedicated themselves to understanding it.During this time they were almost entirely isolated from contact with any European or American. This was the case for their first three years in Burma. Four years passed before Judson dared even to hold a semi-public service. At first, he tried adapting to Burmese customs by wearing a yellow robe to mark himself as a teacher of religion, but he soon changed to white to show he was not a Buddhist. Then, he gave up the whole attempt as artificial and decided that, regardless of his dress, no Burmese would identify him as anything but a foreigner.
Zayat
A zayat is a Burmese building found in almost every village. It serves primarily as a shelter for travelers, at the same time, is also an assembly place for religious occasions as well as meeting for the villagers to discuss the needs and plans of the village. Theravada buddhist monks use...
, the customary bamboo and thatch reception shelter, on the street near his home as a reception room and meeting place for Burmese men. Fifteen men came to his first public meeting in April 1819. He was encouraged but suspected they had come more out of curiosity than anything else. Their attention wandered, and they soon seemed uninterested. Two months later, he baptized his first Burmese convert, Maung Naw, a 35-year-old timber worker from the hill tribes.
First attempts by the Judsons to interest the natives of Rangoon with the Gospel of Jesus met with almost total indifference. Buddhist traditions and the Burmese world view at that time led many to disregard the pleadings of Adorniram and his wife to believe in one living and all-powerful God. To add to their discouragement, their second child, Roger William Judson, died at almost eight months of age.
Judson completed translation of the Grammatical Notices of the Burman Language the following July and the Gospel of Matthew
Gospel of Matthew
The Gospel According to Matthew is one of the four canonical gospels, one of the three synoptic gospels, and the first book of the New Testament. It tells of the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth...
, in 1817. Judson began public evangelism
Evangelism
Evangelism refers to the practice of relaying information about a particular set of beliefs to others who do not hold those beliefs. The term is often used in reference to Christianity....
in 1818 sitting in a zayat
Zayat
A zayat is a Burmese building found in almost every village. It serves primarily as a shelter for travelers, at the same time, is also an assembly place for religious occasions as well as meeting for the villagers to discuss the needs and plans of the village. Theravada buddhist monks use...
by the roadside calling out "Ho! Everyone that thirsteth for knowledge!" The first believer was baptized in 1819, and there were 18 believers by 1822.
In 1820, Judson and a fellow missionary named Colman attempted to petition the Emperor of Burma, King Bagyidaw
Bagyidaw
Bagyidaw Bagyidaw's reign saw the First Anglo-Burmese War , which marked the beginning of the end of the highly militaristic Konbaung dynasty. Bagyidaw inherited the largest Burmese empire, second only to King Bayinnaung's, but also one that shared a long ill-defined borders with British India...
, in the hope that he would grant freedom for the missionaries to preach and teach throughout the country, as well as remove the sentence of death that was given for those Burmese who changed religion.
It took Judson 12 years to make 18 converts. Nevertheless, there was much to encourage him. He had written a grammar of the language that is still in use today and had begun to translate the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
.
His wife, Ann, was even more fluent in the spoken language of the people than her more academically literate husband. She befriended the wife of the viceroy of Rangoon, as quickly as she did illiterate workers and women.
A printing press had been sent from Serampore, and a missionary printer, George H. Hough, who arrived from America with his wife in 1817, produced the first printed materials in Burmese ever printed in Burma, which included 800 copies of Judson's translation of the Gospel of Matthew
Gospel of Matthew
The Gospel According to Matthew is one of the four canonical gospels, one of the three synoptic gospels, and the first book of the New Testament. It tells of the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth...
. The chronicler of the church, Maung Shwe Wa, concludes this part of the story, "So was born the church in Rangoon–logger and fisherman, the poor and the rich, men and women. One traveled the whole path to Christ in three days; another took two years. But once they had decided for Christ they were his for all time."
Judson, instead of welcoming him to the faith, pressed him further asking if he believed what he had read in the gospel of Matthew that Jesus
Jesus
Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
the son of God died on the cross. U Shwe Ngong shook his head and said, "Ah, you have caught me now. I believe that he suffered death, but I cannot believe he suffered the shameful death on the cross." Not long after, he came back to tell Judson, "I have been trusting in my own reason, not the word of God…. I now believe the crucifixion of Christ because it is contained in scripture."
The essence of Judson's preaching was a combination of conviction of the truth with the rationality of the Christian faith, a firm belief in the authority of the Bible, and a determination to make Christianity relevant to the Burmese mind without violating the integrity of Christian truth, or as he put it, "to preach the gospel, not anti-Buddhism."
By 1823, ten years after his arrival, membership of the little church had grown to 18, and Judson had finally finished the first draft of his translation of the entire text of the New Testament
New Testament
The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
in Burmese.
Anglo-Burmese War (1824–1826)
Assam
Assam , also, rarely, Assam Valley and formerly the Assam Province , is a northeastern state of India and is one of the most culturally and geographically distinct regions of the country...
and Bengal
Bengal
Bengal is a historical and geographical region in the northeast region of the Indian Subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. Today, it is mainly divided between the sovereign land of People's Republic of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal, although some regions of the previous...
; Britain responded by attacking and absorbing two Burmese provinces into her India holdings to broaden her trade routes to East Asia. The war was a rough interruption of the Baptists' missionary work. English-speaking Americans were too easily confused with the enemy and suspected of spying.
Judson was imprisoned for 17 months during the war between the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
and Burma, first at Ava
Ava
Innwa is a city in the Mandalay Division of Burma , situated just to the south of Amarapura on the Ayeyarwady River. Its formal title is Ratanapura , which means City of Gems in Pali. The name Innwa means mouth of the lake, which comes from in , meaning lake, and wa , which means mouth...
and then at Aung Pinle. Judson and Price were violently arrested. Officers led by an official executioner burst into the Judson home, threw Judson to the ground in front of his wife, bound him with torture thongs, and dragged him off to the infamous, vermin
Vermin
Vermin is a term applied to various animal species regarded by some as pests or nuisances and especially to those associated with the carrying of disease. Since the term is defined in relation to human activities, which species are included will vary from area to area and even person to person...
-ridden death prison of Ava
Ava
Innwa is a city in the Mandalay Division of Burma , situated just to the south of Amarapura on the Ayeyarwady River. Its formal title is Ratanapura , which means City of Gems in Pali. The name Innwa means mouth of the lake, which comes from in , meaning lake, and wa , which means mouth...
.
Twelve agonizing months later, Judson and Price, along with a small group of surviving Western prisoners, were marched overland, barefoot and sick, for six more months of misery in a primitive village near Mandalay
Mandalay
Mandalay is the second-largest city and the last royal capital of Burma. Located north of Yangon on the east bank of the Irrawaddy River, the city has a population of one million, and is the capital of Mandalay Region ....
. Of the sepoy
Sepoy
A sepoy was formerly the designation given to an Indian soldier in the service of a European power. In the modern Indian Army, Pakistan Army and Bangladesh Army it remains in use for the rank of private soldier.-Etymology and Historical usage:...
British prisoners-of-war imprisoned with them, all but one died.
The sufferings and brutalities of those 20 long months and days in prison, half-starved, iron-fettered, and sometimes trussed and suspended by his mangled feet with only head and shoulders touching the ground is described in detail by his wife, shortly after his release.
The end of the war should have been a time of rejoicing for the mission. As soon as her husband was released by the Burmese, Ann wrote that one good result of the war could be that terms of the treaty which ceded Burmese provinces to the British might provide opportunity to expand the witness of the mission into unreached parts of the country.
On October 24, 1826, Ann died at Amherst (now Kyaikkami
Kyaikkami
Kyaikkami is a resort town in the Mon State of south-east Myanmar.Formerly known as Amherst, named after William Amherst, 1st Earl Amherst, then governor-general, it is situated on a peninsula about south of the town of Mawlamyine. It is a popular destination for local pilgrims and some tourists...
), Burma, a victim of the long, dreadful months of disease, death, stress and loneliness that had been hers for 21 months. Their third child died six months later. She died while her husband was out exploring the ceded province of Tenasserim. It was in the wild hills of that newly British province of Tenasserim that the first signs of rapid growth in Protestant Christianity in Burma began. Within a few years of the end of the war, Baptist membership doubled on an average of every eight years for the 32 years between 1834 and 1866.
Imperialism
Imperialism, as defined by Dictionary of Human Geography, is "the creation and/or maintenance of an unequal economic, cultural, and territorial relationships, usually between states and often in the form of an empire, based on domination and subordination." The imperialism of the last 500 years,...
, but it should be noted that he first acted on behalf of the defeated Burmese as translator, not for the Western victors.
Three significant factors had a part, though not the only part, in the rise of the Burmese Baptist churches. Most of the growth was in British-ruled territory, rather than the Burmese-ruled kingdom. It may also be significant that after an Anglo-Burmese war, the missionaries were American, not British. The most telling factor was religion. Most of the growth came from animist tribes, rather than from the major population group, the Buddhist Burmese. The first Burmese pastor he ordained was Ko-Thah-a, one of the original group of converts, who refounded the church at Rangoon.
Karen apostle
Karen people
The Karen or Kayin people , are a Sino-Tibetan language speaking ethnic group which resides primarily in southern and southeastern Burma . The Karen make up approximately 7 percent of the total Burmese population of approximately 50 million people...
, Ko Tha Byu
Ko Tha Byu
Ko Tha Byu was the first Karen Christian and a notable evangelist to the Karen.He was born in U Twa village near Bassein. In his early life, he reportedly engaged in robbery and was involved in many murders. After being sold as a slave to a Christian Burmese, he was converted to Baptist...
. Credit is due also to the three missionary pioneers to the Karen people, George Boardman
George Boardman
George Dana Boardman was born in Livermore, Maine, the son of the Rev. Sylvanus Boardman. He attended Colby College, and was the school's first graduate in 1822. He served as tutor for a year at Colby, then continued his education at Andover Theological Seminary. On February 16, 1825, he was...
and his wife, Sarah; and Adoniram Judson.
The Karen people were a primitive, hunted minority group of ancient Tibeto-Burman ancestry scattered in the forests and jungles of the Salween River
Salween River
The Salween is a river, about long, that flows from the Tibetan Plateau into the Andaman Sea in Southeast Asia. It drains a narrow and mountainous watershed of that extends into the countries China, Burma and Thailand. Steep canyon walls line the swift, powerful and undammed Salween, one of the...
and in the hills along the southeast coast. Judson was the first missionary to make contact with them in 1827, when he ransomed and freed a debt-slave from one of his early converts. The freed slave, Ko Tha Byu, was an illiterate, surly man who spoke almost no Burmese and was reputed to be not only a thief, but also a murderer who admitted killing at least 30 men, but could not remember exactly how many more.
In 1828, the former Karen bandit, "whose rough, undisciplined genius, energy and zeal for Christ" had caught the notice of the missionaries, was sent south with a new missionary couple, the Boardmans, into the territory of the strongly animistic, non-Buddhist Karen. Ko Tha Byu was no sooner baptized, when he set off into the jungle alone to preach to his fellow tribe members. Astonishingly, he found them prepared for his preaching. Their ancient oracle traditions, handed down for centuries, contained some startling echoes of the Old Testament
Old Testament
The Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...
that some scholars conjecture a linkage with Jewish communities (or possibly even Nestorians), before their migrations from western China into Burma perhaps as early as the 12th century.
The core of what they called their "Tradition of the Elders" was a belief in an unchangeable, eternal, all-powerful God, creator of heaven and earth, of man, and of woman formed from a rib taken from the man. They believed in humanity's temptation by a devil, and its fall, and that some day a messiah would come to its rescue. They lived in expectation of a prophecy that white foreigners would bring them a sacred parchment roll.
While the Boardmans and Ko Tha Byu were penetrating the jungles to the south, Judson shook off a paralyzing year-long siege of depression that overcame him after the death of his wife and set out alone on long canoe trips up the Salween River into the tiger
Tiger
The tiger is the largest cat species, reaching a total body length of up to and weighing up to . Their most recognizable feature is a pattern of dark vertical stripes on reddish-orange fur with lighter underparts...
-infested jungles to evangelize the northern Karen. Between trips, he worked unceasingly at his lifelong goal of translating the entire Bible into Burmese. When he finished it at last in 1834, he had been labouring on it for 24 years. It was printed and published in 1835.
In April of that same year, he married Sarah Hall Boardman
Sarah Hall Boardman
Sarah Hall Boardman , born in Alstead, New Hampshire, spent 20 years of her life in Burma doing missionary work. She and her husband George Boardman sailed to Burma in 1824, just one week after their wedding. She was widowed in 1831...
, widow of fellow missionary George Boardman
George Boardman
George Dana Boardman was born in Livermore, Maine, the son of the Rev. Sylvanus Boardman. He attended Colby College, and was the school's first graduate in 1822. He served as tutor for a year at Colby, then continued his education at Andover Theological Seminary. On February 16, 1825, he was...
. They had eight children, five of whom survived to adulthood. Sarah's health began failing and physicians recommended a return to America. Sarah died en route at
St. Helena on September 1, 1845. He continued home, where he was greeted as a celebrity and toured the eastern seaboard raising the profile of and money for missionary activity. Because he could barely speak above a whisper, due to pulmonary illness, his public addresses were made by speaking to an assistant, who would then address the audience.
On June 2, 1846, Judson married for the third time, to writer Emily Chubbuck
Emily Chubbuck
Emily Chubbuck was an American poet who wrote under the pseudonym Fanny Forrester.-Biography:Emily Chubbuck was born to poor parents in Eaton, New York on August 23, 1817. In 1834 she became a teacher and joined a Baptist church. In 1840 she entered the Utica female seminary and wrote her first...
, who he had commissioned to write memoirs for Sarah Hall Boardman. They had a daughter born in 1847.
Judson lived to approve and welcome the first single women as missionaries to Burma. A general rule of the mission had hitherto prevented such appointments. Judson said it was "probably a good rule, but our minds should not be closed" to making exceptions. The first two exceptions were extraordinary.
Sarah Cummings arrived in 1832. Cummings proved her mettle at once, choosing to work alone with Karen evangelists in the malaria
Malaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases...
-ridden Salween River valley north of Moulmein, but within two years she died of fever.
In 1835, a second single woman, Eleanor Macomber, after five years of mission to the Ojibway Indians in Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
, joined the mission in Burma. Alone, with the help of Karen evangelistic assistants, she planted a church in a remote Karen village and nurtured it to the point where it could be placed under the care of an ordinary missionary. She lived five years and died of jungle fever.
Judson developed a serious lung disease and doctors prescribed a sea voyage as a cure. On April 12, 1850, he died at age 61 onboard ship in the Bay of Bengal
Bay of Bengal
The Bay of Bengal , the largest bay in the world, forms the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean. It resembles a triangle in shape, and is bordered mostly by the Eastern Coast of India, southern coast of Bangladesh and Sri Lanka to the west and Burma and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands to the...
and was buried at sea, having spent 37 years in missionary service abroad with only one trip back home to America. A memorial to Judson was built on Burial Hill
Burial Hill
Burial Hill is a hill containing a historic cemetery in Plymouth, Massachusetts. The burial ground is the burial site of several Pilgrims. The cemetery was founded in the 17th century and is located off Leyden Street, the first street in Plymouth.-History:The first Pilgrim burial ground was on...
in Plymouth, Massachusetts.
Legacy
Myanmar
Burma , officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar , is a country in Southeast Asia. Burma is bordered by China on the northeast, Laos on the east, Thailand on the southeast, Bangladesh on the west, India on the northwest, the Bay of Bengal to the southwest, and the Andaman Sea on the south....
has the third largest number of Baptists worldwide, behind the United States and India. The majority of adherents are Karen
Karen people
The Karen or Kayin people , are a Sino-Tibetan language speaking ethnic group which resides primarily in southern and southeastern Burma . The Karen make up approximately 7 percent of the total Burmese population of approximately 50 million people...
and Kachin
Kachin people
The Kachin people are a group of ethnic groups who largely inhabit the Kachin Hills in northern Burma's Kachin State and neighbouring areas of China and India. More than half of the Kachin people identify themselves as Christians - while a significant minority follow Buddhism and some also adhere...
.
Each July, Baptist churches in Myanmar celebrate "Judson Day," commemorating his arrival as a missionary. Inside the campus of Yangon University is Judson Church, named in his honor, and in 1920 Judson College, named in his honor, merged into Rangoon College, which has since been renamed Yangon University.
Judson compiled the first ever Burmese-English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
dictionary. The English-Burmese half was interrupted by his death and completed by missionary E. A. Steven. Every dictionary and grammar written in Burma in the last two centuries has been based on ones originally created by Judson. Judson "became a symbol of the preeminence of Bible translation for" Protestant missionaries.
In the 1950s, Burma's Buddhist prime minister U Nu
U Nu
For other people with the Burmese name Nu, see Nu .U Nu was a leading Burmese nationalist and political figure of the 20th century...
told the Burma Christian Council "Oh no, a new translation is not necessary. Judson's captures the language and idiom of Burmese perfectly and is very clear and understandable." His translation remains the most popular version in Myanmar.
His change of persuasion to the validity of believer's baptism
Believer's baptism
Believer's baptism is the Christian practice of baptism as this is understood by many Protestant churches, particularly those that descend from the Anabaptist tradition...
, and subsequent need of support, led to the founding of the first national Baptist organization in the United States and subsequently to all American Baptist associations, including the Southern Baptists
Southern Baptist Convention
The Southern Baptist Convention is a United States-based Christian denomination. It is the world's largest Baptist denomination and the largest Protestant body in the United States, with over 16 million members...
that were the first to break off from the national organization. The printing of his wife Ann's letters about their mission inspired many Americans to become or support Christian missionaries. There are at least 36 Baptist churches in the United States named after him, Judson University in Illinois is named after him and Judson College in Alabama
Judson College (Alabama)
Judson College, originally named Judson Female Institute, was founded by members of the Siloam Baptist Church in 1838 in Marion, Alabama. It is the fifth oldest women's college in the United States. It was named after Ann Hasseltine Judson, the first female foreign missionary from the United States...
is named after his wife Ann.
At his alma mater, Brown University, there is a house named after him, which is owned by Christian Union.
Judson is honored with a feast day on the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church (USA)
Calendar of saints (Episcopal Church in the United States of America)
The veneration of saints in the Episcopal Church is a continuation of an ancient tradition from the early Church which honors important people of the Christian faith. The usage of the term "saint" is similar to Roman Catholic and Orthodox traditions. Those in the Anglo-Catholic tradition may...
on April 12.
Published works
- Burmese Bible, as well as portions published before the entire text was translated
- A Burmese-English dictionary (English-Burmese portion completed posthumously, see below)
- A Burmese Grammar
- Two hymns: Our Father, God, Who art in Heaven and Come Holy Spirit, Dove Divine
See also
- John Alexander Stewart (scholar)John Alexander Stewart (scholar)John Alexander Stewart CIE MC MA LLD ICS was a classical scholar, colonial public servant and professor of Burmese.Stewart was born in Strichen, Aberdeenshire Scotland and educated at the University of Aberdeen where he graduated with first-class honours in classics in 1903. He passed the Indian...
, another first compiler (with C.W. Dunn) of a Burmese-English dictionary
External links
- Adoniram Judson biographies
- Life and Work of Judson
- SBHLA bio of Judson
- Google E-text of an 1853 Biography Volume One
- Google E-text of an 1853 Biography Volume Two
- A memorial church to Adoniram and Ann Judson
- Online Burmese Bible
- Online Burmese Bible (Compatible with Burmese Wikipedia) — Translated from The Original Tongues by Rev. A. Judson, D.D.
- Hymn: "Come, Holy Spirit, Dove Divine"
- Judson, Edward. The Life of Adoniram Judson. New York: Anson D. F. Randolph & Company, 1883