Calvin Colton Reports on the Stockbridge Bible

An artist's conception of the ancient Israelites' ark of the covenant ---->



Not everything ever written about the Stockbridge Bible made it into the paper that I submitted to The Book Collector. My paper did mention, however, that the oak chest which was used to transport the two volumes was compared to the Ark of the Covenant which was used by the ancient Israelites to carry two stone tablets on which the Ten Commandments were written. The person who made that comparison was Calvin Colton. Here is what he observed:

"I saw a Bible yesterday, safely kept in a sort of ark, at their place of worship, a remarkable relic of Hebrew custom), printed at Oxford, England, in 1717, of the largest and finest type I have ever seen; except one shown me two years ago in the English Church at Montreal, the last of which was said to be the largest and fairest type of a Bible ever done in English. From the resemblance of the two, I have reason to believe they are both of the same impression."

Colton then describes the physical characteristics and quotes the inscriptions of Ayscough and Coram. Then he continues:

It was transported with the tribe to the State of New York; -and for aught I know, with all the sacerdotal solemnities of their Hebrew fathers, in ancient days. And it was again transported by the same religious care to this vast wilderness [Coram had referred to New England as a vast wilderness], of the North-West. And here it is, a perpetual monument of their fear of God, and of their love of his word and ordinances. their reverence for this volume and for the ark [the chest of oak] which contains it, is almost superstitious" (pages 187-190).

Did you notice that Colton's words don't make a lot of sense until you realize that he was a believer in the lost tribes theory?