History of The Iranian Bible Society

The first Bible Society contact with Iran was in the person of Henry Martyn who came to Iran in 1811 to revise his translation of the New Testament that he had started in India. Martyn had been instrumental in the founding of the Calcutta auxiliary of the British and Foreign Bible Society. This Bible Society auxiliary convinced Martyn of the necessity of having his translation revised and he decided to do it in Iran. When the translation had been completed in 1812, the newly established Russian Bible Society volunteered to publish it. The publication of the Persian New Testament in 1815 provided the first printed copies of the Persian New Testament to be circulated in Iran.The next contact was through Joseph Wolff of the London Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews. When Wolff came through Gavilan in Azerbaijan in 1824, Bishop Yuhannan of the Assyrian Church of the East gave him a copy of the Syriac Pentateuch to be printed. When Justin Perkins came to Iran in 1834 he had copies of the Syriac Pentateuch that had been printed in London by the British and Foreign Bible Society.