 |
| Eli Smith Memorial Stone (II F 7) |
At Plot II F 7 of the Anglo-American Cemetery, visitors will
find a beautiful, new memorial stone. This stone does not mark the grave
a new burial, but rather that for one of the pioneering American Protestant
missionaries: Eli Smith.
Born on 13 September 1801 to a pious family in rural Northford,
Connecticut, Eli Smith harnessed the opportunities emerging in Antebellum New
England. At the age of sixteen, Eli entered Yale College in nearby New Haven, Connecticut
and graduated with a B.A. in 1821. It was in New Haven that Eli made a public
profession of faith to be recognized as an official member of the
Congregational Church. After two years of teaching in Georgia, Eli returned
to New England to pursue ministerial training at the Andover Theological
Seminary, where he graduated in 1826. On 10 May of that same year, Eli Smith
was ordained as a missionary for the American Board of Commissioners for
Foreign Missions (ABCFM). Due to his proclivity in languages, Eli's designated
station was Malta, where he would work with the
Protestant press established on that small island in the middle of the Mediterranean to produce evangelical
literature in a variety of languages.
Eli Smith left the United States on 23 May 1826.
Following a short stay in Malta, Eli continued on to
Beirut, in order to add Arabic to his expanding repertoire of languages. In
1827, he landed in Beirut, which was then a small city within the Syrian province
of the Ottoman Empire. Eli commenced the study of Arabic, with his primary
teacher being
Tannous
Haddad, a man who eventually become an important teacher and leader within
the
National Evangelical Church of
Beirut.
Like many young male missionaries of the ABCFM at the time,
Eli’s early years were also spent in exploring the mission field. In 1829, Eli joined
Rufus
Anderson, the famous ABCFM secretary and policy maker, on a tour of Greece.
In 1830 and 1831, Eli traveled with H.G.O Dwight through Asia Minor,
Armenian and Persia, producing an important and influential
account of their travels.
In 1838, he traveled with
Edward
Robinson to Palestine, from which an important
work of Biblical
geography was produced. Smith also traveled regularly to Europe,
particularly Leipzig, for his work with the mission press, which resulted in the
creation of a new Arab Font, often referred to as the
“American
Font”.
 |
| “Eli and Mehitable B. Smith,” Courtesy, Andover Newton Theological Seminary, Newton Center, MA. All rights reserved. |
Eli’s travels also brought him back to the United States,
for both professional and personal reasons. During his first furlough to the
United States, Eli married
Sarah
Lanman Huntington, from Norwich, Connecticut on 21 July 1833. In Sarah, Eli
found not only a wife, but a missionary companion, who drew upon her work with
the
Mohegan tribe of Native Americans,
and became an influential figure in the development of
female education in the region.
Unfortunately, Sarah died on 30 September 1836 and was buried in the cemetery
of
All Saints Church of Buca,
near Smyrna (Izmir) in Anatolia. Five years later, on 9 March 1841, Eli married
Maria Ward Chapin, from Rochester, New York. After only one year of service, Maria
died from dysentery contracted during the birth of a son,
Charles
Henry. The grave for Maria is found next to Eli’s at the AAC, at plot II F
6. On 23 October 1846, Eli married his third wife,
Mehitable (Hetty) Simpkins Butler. Hetty not only became a loving step-mother to Charlie, but
mother to five of her own children: Mary Elizabeth, Eli Whitney, Sarah Butler,
Edward Robinson and
Benjamin
Eli. Sadly, Eli Whitney, died as an infant and is memorialized in the Charnel
House at the AAC. While the public memory of Eli focuses on his academic and
evangelical accomplishments, the private letters held by
Yale Divinity School and
Harvard’s
Houghton Library, reveal his deep love for his family as well as deep
profound grief at the deaths of Sarah, Maria and Eli Whitney.
Eli
also developed close personal tied with his colleagues, both missionary and Syrian, most noticeably with Rahīl
Aṭā, who first studied as a boarding student under Sarah Smith, and Rahīl’s
husband, Buṭrus al-Bustanī.
But it is work as a missionary to Ottoman Syria,
particularly in Beirut and Mount Lebanon, that Eli Smith is most commonly remembered. Eli’s strong command of Arabic allowed him to become an important
preacher, teacher, translator and scholar within both the Protestant community
as well as the cultural revival (the
Nahḍah) that was unfolding within Arab society. In 1834, Eli facilitated the transfer of the ABCFM’s Arabic press
from Malta to Beirut. This press, known as a
l-Matbaʿa al-Amīrikāniyyah
or the
American
Mission Press, published both
religious
and secular works. Some of these works were pieces written originally by
Eli or translated by him (a list of which is given below). Eli was active in the
Syrian Society of Arts and Sciences, an influential cultural and educational society,
whose other members included Eli’s close friends and colleagues
William
Thomson,
Corneilius
Van Dyck (plot II F 11),
Buṭrus
al-Bustanī,
Nāṣīf
al-Yāzjiī,
John
Wortabet (plot II F 10) and
Mīkhayīl
Mishāqa.
 |
| “Sifr
al-Takwīn 1:1-6 [Genesis 1:1-6],” [1848-1853], manuscript digital facsimile, Arabic
Bible, AC-36:1, N.E.S.T. Special Collections, Near East School of Theology,
Beirut, Lebanon. |
Eli’s most famous accomplishment however was his role in
producing a new translation of the Bible into Arabic. Commencing in 1848, the process
followed that Buṭrus al-Bustanī would first translate the work from the
original languages, Nāṣīf al-Yāzjiī would revise the grammar, while Eli would
review the drafts. Eli supervised the first proofs printed at the American
Mission Press, which were circulated to colleagues and returned with
corrections that he would implement. By 1857, the Pentateuch and all of the New
Testament had been translated by this arduous process, but had not received its
final revision. Unfortunately, Eli did not live to see this work completed, which was continued
by his colleagues Cornelius Van Dyck and Yūsuf Al-Asīr and became one of the
most popular versions of the Arabic Bible.
On 11 January 1857, Eli Smith died in Beirut after suffering
from a long battle with cancer. He was originally buried at the Mission
Cemetery on the Mission Compound in Downtown Beirut, next to the building that
housed the American Mission Press that he established and the small office
where he worked on the Bible translation. In 1960, his grave, like many of his
colleagues, were removed from the Mission Cemetery to the Anglo-American
Cemetery. At some point the memorial stone for Eli Smith was severely damaged.
It remained in this state until the Anglo-American Cemetery Association
together with the family of Eli Smith’s descendants, the Leavy family of New
Haven, Connecticut, and with the support of Rev. Issa Saliba, were able to
facilitate its restoration. In December 2014, a new memorial stone for Eli
Smith was erected, while that of his second wife, Maria, was restored. Through this
the legacy of Eli Smith, “for 30 years missionary of the ABCFM in Syria,
scholar and translator of the Holy Bible”, is honored and remembered.
Published works written, edited or translated by Eli Smith
Missionary Sermons
and Addresses (Boston: Perkins and Marvin, 1833).
Researches of the
Rev. E. Smith and Rev. H.G.O. Dwight in Armenia: including a journey through
Asia Minor, and into Georgia and Persia, with a visit to the Nestorian and
Chaldean Christians of Oormiah (Boston: Crocker and Brewster, 1833).
[co-authored with H.G.O. Dwight].
Kitāb dalīl al-ṣawāb
fī uṣūl al-ḥisāb (Beirut: American Mission Press, 1837).
Kitāb al-bāb
al-Maftūḥ fī aʿmāl al-rūḥ (Beirut: American Mission Pres, 1843).
Biblical
Researches in Palestine, and Adjacent Regions (Boston: Crocker and
Brewster, 1841). [co-authored with Edward Robinson; 3 volumes].
Kitāb al-mabāḥit
fī itiqadāt baʿaḍ al-kanāʾis (Beirut: American Mission Press, 1854).
Tarnīmāt li
l-ʿibāda (Beirut: American Mission Press, 1852). [co-authored with Buṭrus
al-Bustanī and Nāṣīf al-Yāzijī].
Majmūʿ Fawāʾid
(Beirut: American Mission Press, 1851-1856).
Al-Kitāb
al-Muqaddas (Beirut: American Mission Press, 1865). [co-translated with Buṭrus
al-Bustanī, Nāṣīf al-Yāzjiī, Cornelius Van Dyck and Yūsuf Al-Asīr].
Secondary literature on Eli Smith
Dexter, Franklin Bowditch. Biographical
Notice of Graduates of Yale (New Haven: n.s., 1913), 80-83.
Khoury, Yousef Quzma. (ed.). (1990). Al-Jamʿiyyah al-Suriyyah lil-ʿUlum wa-al-Funun, 1847-1852 (Beirut:
Dar al-Hamra, 1990).
Leavy, Margaret R. Eli
Smith and the Arabic Bible. New Haven, CT: Yale Divinity School Library,
1993.
Leavy, Margaret R.
“Looking for the Armenians: Eli Smith’s Missionary Adventure, 1830-1831.” Transactions
of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences 50 (1992): 189-127.
Leavy, Margaret R. “The Making of a Missionary:
Eli Smith at Yale, 1817-1821.” Journal of the New Haven Colony
Historical Society 41:2 (1995), 20-37.
“Obituary Notice of Rev. Eli Smith,
D.D.” Missionary Herald 53:7 (1857), 224-229.
Saliba, Issa A. “The
Bible in Arabic: The 19th-Century Protestant Translation.” The Muslim World 65
(1975), 254-263.
Stoddard Jr., Robert
D. “The Rev. Eli Smith, 1801-1857: Evangelical Orientalist in the Levant.” NEST
Theological Review 30:2 (2009), 202-222.
Tibawi, Abdul Latif. American Interests in Syria: 1800-1901: A Study of Educational,
Literary and Religious Works (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1966).
Zeuge, Uta. “Die
Mission des American Board in Syrien im 19. Jahrhundert: Implikationen eines
transkulturellen Dialogs”. ThD. Thesis. (Wien: Universität Wien, 2014).
.
