The two Bibles
What appears to be the Gold Coast’s early Holy Bibles, the ones used by the European Missionaries as they crisscrossed the mosquito infested terrains, has been discovered.
The 1795 scriptures in dual copies were brought to the newsroom of the DAILY GUIDEa fortnight ago by a man who said they belonged to his father’s grandfather.
His great grandfather, according to the 76-year-old former police officer, Appiah Ofori, was one of the persons who carried the bulky scriptures for the European evangelists.
Senior lawyer, Kwame Ntow Fianko, who heard about the 1795 illustrated Holy Bibles from his client decided it is worth telling the story and came with him to the newsroom of the DAILY GUIDE.
The 1795 Bibles surely need chemical treatment to preserve them. They showed age and without intervention might succumb to bookworms.
The unusual letter forms could only be deciphered because of the knowledge of the verses and the contexts in which they appeared.
The former police officer said he inherited the Bibles from his father who died at the age of 102. The centenarian too inherited it from his father who served the early missionaries evangelising in the forests of the Eastern part of the Gold Coast.
“We hail from Akyem Bansu which is situated between Kwabeng and Apramkesi in the Atiwa West District of the Eastern Region,” he told me during an interview he granted when he came with the voluminous Bibles to the DAILY GUIDE newsroom.
When his father died, he narrated, “I had a feeling the old man had hidden some gold dust in the ceiling and so reached out to the location.”
Something, he said, was wrapped by a velvet fabric, otherwise called ‘ago’ in Akan.
That of course heightened his suspicion that there was a treasure there.
“I finally brought it down and what I found were two very old 1795 Holy Bibles,” he said.
“My grandfather was one of those persons hired to carry the Bibles for the early missionaries during their early evangelisation missions in the Gold Coast’s forest areas. They served as head porters of the missionaries.
“Such carriers of the Bibles and other possessions of the missionaries assisted them to navigate through inhospitable terrains and sometimes carrying them to cross streams,” he added.
The missionary owner of the Bibles, could have died during the evangelising campaigns, and according to Appiah Ofori, “my great grandfather inherited them.”
Continuing, he said,“My father was not a Christian but was convinced that the Bible as he was told should be handled properly lest a curse of death visits the person who mishandles it. The fear could have led to the concealment of the scriptures far away in the ceiling by persons who were themselves not Christians.”
Some of the native porters inherited the possessions of the white missionaries when they died, as they did through malaria, which at the time had not yet been subdued.
By A.R. Gomda