João Ferreira de Almeida

João Ferreira Annes de Almeida (* 1628 in Torre de Tavares , Mangualde district , † 1691 in Java , Indonesia ) was a Portuguese missionary and translator.

Born to Catholic parents and with a Catholic education, he turned to Protestantism in later years . He went to Asia early as a missionary, what is now Indonesia.

Because the Bible had previously only been translated into Portuguese in small parts (for the first time the Book of Moses , by D. Dinis in the 13th century), and the masses continued to be held in Latin , it was Almeida's translation of the largely entire Bible, who made the book available in the local language for the first time. Almeida had been working on the translation from the age of 16 (1644), which he had completed except for a few parts when he died in 1691. It became the most widely distributed book in the Portuguese language, with over 1,000 editions and an estimated total print run of over 100 million. It contributed significantly to the spread of Portuguese.

In the 2007 election of the public television broadcaster RTP for the “Greatest Portuguese of All Time” ( Os Grandes Portugueses ), Almeida was ranked 19th.

Web links

• Literature by and about João Ferreira de Almeida in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ http://tv0.rtp.pt/gdesport/?article=830&visual=3&topic=20  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
2. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from July 7, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.