why God had not instructed them in it sooner, for then their forefathers, too, could have gone to heaven. When Paul Egede answered that perhaps God had seen that they would not accept the Word, but rather despise it, and thereby become more guilty, an old man said that he had known many excellent people, and had himself had a pious father; and even if some of them might have despised the Word, 'still there were the women and children, who are all credulous.' When Paul Egede explained to them that worldly goods are 'trumpery,' altogether unworthy to go to heaven, someone answered: 'I did not know that these things were not worth thinking about; if it is so nice there, why are we so unwilling to leave the earth?'
When the Scriptures came to be translated, considerable objections presented themselves. Many even of the Christian Greenlanders thought that it would not be advisable for their unbelieving countrymen to be told, for example, of 'Jacob's slyness and treachery towards his father and brother, of the patriarchs' polygamy, and especially of Simeon's and Levi's matchless wickedness.' 'The story of Lot,' too, they thought unfortunate. 'A selection of what was most important would be best for this people.'[1]
- ↑ Compare Paul Egede, Efterretninger om Grönland, pp. 117, 162.
