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The Bible Society of Malaysia (Lembaga Alkitab MalaysiaBSM) a nondenominational Christian organisation committed to translating and distributing the Bible in Malaysia. Until 1984, it was the Malaysia auxiliary of the Bible Society of Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei but can trace it's origins to the setting up of first branches of the Java Auxiliary Bible Society, itself an auxiliary of the British and Foreign Bible Society (also known as the Bible Society), in the settlements of Penang and Malacca in 1816.

Early work in Penang and Malacca
The first branches of the Bible society to be set up in the Malay peninsula were auxiliaries of the Bible Society set up in Malacca and Penang, the former of which was under the temporary administration of the East India Company during the British interregnum in the Dutch East Indies.

In 1814, the Bible Society commissioned a revision of the 1733 Malay translation of the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles by Melchior Leydekker. Consequently the whole New Testament was translated and published in 1817. Published copies were primarily distributed in Penang.

At around the same period, Robert Morrison of the London Missionary Society (LMS) was working to translate the New Testament into the Chinese in Canton. The work was completed and published by the Bible Society in 1813. Morrison proceeded to work on translating the Old Testament aided by William Milne who worked from Malacca. The work was completed in 1819 and published by the Bible Society in 1823.

Prior to the permission being granted to missionaries to enter China in 1842, the LMS established mission stations in Penang, Malacca, Singapore and Java, collectively known as the Ultra-Ganges Mission. These stations were used to preach to to the large number of expatriate Chinese and sailors, in the belief that they would provide a springboard to mission activity in China when it was opened up to Protestant missionaries. It was from these mission stations that the Bible in Chinese was used and distributed with the help of the established auxiliary Bible societies.

By 1837, the Singapore Auxiliary Bible Society was set up in Singapore. Due to the increasing importance of Singapore as the administrative and cultural centre of what was to become British Malaya, it became the hub of the Society's work with the earlier established auxiliaries in Penang and Malacca taking a subsidiary role as branches of the Singapore auxiliary.

As the Auxiliary in Singapore as well as the branches of the other Straits Settlements were run by volunteers, Bible distribution work ebbed and flowed according to the availability of willing personnel. The situation became even more dire after the closure of the Ultra-Ganges Mission and the expatriation of its missionaries and infrastructure to China after 1842, leaving Benjamin Keasberry as the one of the few full time missionary to continue mission work to the local Malays and Chinese.

Keasberry managed to complete a new Malay translation of the New Testament with financial aid from the Bible Society in 1852. Printing of the New Testament was done in the Singapore Mission Press owned by Keasberry while the Singapore Ladies' Bible and Tract Society set up in 1857 by Sophia Cooke, an Anglican missionary of the Society for the Promotion of Female Education in the East, worked on distributing the Scriptures.

By 1870, the work of the Auxiliary had almost been on a standstill for a few decades owing to the lack of workers and coordinated work.

Branches of the Singapore Auxiliary Bible Society
The work of the Singapore Auxiliary was rebooted in 1882 and the hiring of the first full time agent, John Haffenden, Bible distribution work became more organised and the dormant branch in Penang was revived as a sub-depot. A sub-depot was also opened in Larut in Perak making it the first organised Bible Society work outside of the Straits Settlements in Malaya.