maintained by the Faroese Bible Society and the British and Foreign Bible Society

Faroese

Faroese is the native language of the Faroe Islands. The Faroe Islands lie between the Shetland Islands and Iceland in the North Atlantic Ocean. The Faroe islands are an autonomous country of the Kingdom of Denmark. The language is the modern descendant of Old Norse and is most closely related to Icelandic.

History

The Gospel of Matthew was first book of the Bible in the Faroese language. It was translated by Rev. I.H. Schrøter, who was a native of the Faroe Islands and rector of a Faroese Lutheran church. He tried to translate it in a way which was understandable across the different dialects. The translation was completed in 1822. It was published by the Danish Bible Society and printed in Randers in Denmark in 1823. It was typeset under the care of a Danish Jutland pastor named Lyngbye who had learnt the language when he was in the Foroe Islands. This was a dual language edition Gospel of Matthew with Danish on one page and Faroese on the facing page.

Digital Edition

The Faroese half of the book was digitised from an original copy in the British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS) archives at Cambridge. This was digitised for the Faroese Bible Society.