Person:Paul Burgess (1)

Paul Burgess was born May 30, 1886, in Lisle, New York. He graduated from Colorado College, Colorado Springs, and received his B.D. from McCormick Seminary, Chicago, where he was awarded the Nettie F. McCormick fellowship for study abroad. From 1911 to 1912 he studied at the Universities of Marburg and Berlin in Germany and at the Sorbonne in Paris. In 1924 he received a Ph. D. from the University of Denver, and in the spring of 1958 was awarded the honorary Doctor of Humanities degree by Colorado College. He mastered English, Hebrew, Greek, French, German, and Quiché, and published extensively. The books he wrote and periodicals he edited are listed in the biography Burgess of Guatemala. He founded sixteen fully organized churches, as well as many smaller congregations, and pastored Bethel Church in Quezaltenango for many years. He was a tireless evangelist, witnessing to the educated and to the humble Indians alike, and many were the individuals who counted him as their spiritual father. He founded the Noticiero Evangélico (an evangelical publishing business) and the Librería Evangélica, a Christian bookstore in Quezaltenango. He was instrumental in the beginnings of the Christian girls' school, La Patria, in Quezaltenango. He founded the Quiché Bible Institute, prepared an elementary grammar of the Quiché language, and with his wife and others, collaborated in the translation of the New Testament into Quiché. He published hymnals in Spanish and in Quiché. For many years he published a yearly almanac, "El Almanaque de Tio Perucho", full of pithy aphorisms, one for each day. Paul Burgess considered his "discovery" of the Popol Vuh in the Newberry Library to be one of his major accomplishments. Along with L. L. Legters and Cameron Townsend Paul Burgess was instrumental in the beginnings of the great Bible translation movement which has spread over the world to translate God's Word into the languages of thousands of ethnic minorities. He helped spread the vision of reaching tribespeople in their own language, rather than in the trade language, in a day when such a philosophy was not particularly popular. Paul died December 28, 1958 in Quezaltenango, Guatemala, and Dora died there Nov. 18, 1962. Both are buried in Quezaltenango. Further information about Paul Burgess can be found in his biography: "Burgess of Guatemala" and in the book "Trailblazers for Translators."