John Eliot, traditionally remembered as "the Apostle to the Indians," remains one of the most distinctive figures among the first-generation New England ministers, although his stature rests more on the magnitude of his undertakings and the qualities of his character as reported by others than on the books he left behind him. His greatest undertaking, the Indian Bible (1663), is written in a language no living American can read. The Christian Commonwealth ... (1659), his most important speculative book, was publicly condemned, and copies were destroyed. For Eliot, the central book in human history was the Bible: the source of his evangelical vision, the grounding for his theory of governance, and the essential foundation of any Christian life. Even though a bibliographer can list many books written or translated by Eliot, he was essentially a man of this one book, and his faith in its power led to one of the...