Abstract
Popular culture often presents Martin Luther as almost the first person to translate the Bible into German and make it available to the wider public. According to this view, the Church prohibited vernacular translations of Scripture, “hiding” its contents from ordinary people. Unfortunately, this simplified and unbalanced historical account appears even in school textbooks, not to mention fiction. In reality, the Church not only encouraged Bible translation but initiated it, and German translations are known from as early as the ninth century. What, then, was Luther’s innovation and contribution? To appreciate his work in translating and disseminating Scripture, we must first present the historical situation objectively.
The Church and Bible translation in the Middle Ages
The widespread myth that the Church prohibited the translation and dissemination of Scripture may owe its origins to the so-called Black Legend,1 but it does not reflect historical reality. Translating and spreading the Bible have always been priorities for the Christian Church. Christian proclamation originally relied on a translated scriptural text: the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament produced in the third and second centuries BC. Christianity’s subsequent expansion required further translations into different languages. We need only recall the Church’s momentous translation initiatives of the fourth to ninth centuries, which produced versions in Latin (Jerome), Syriac (the Peshitta and Vetus Syra), Armenian (Mesrop Mashtots and Sahak Partev), Gothic (Ulfilas), Georgian, Coptic, Arabic and, eventually, Slavonic (Cyril and Methodius), among others. In Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, biblical translations covered the languages of peoples across Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia Minor, Central Asia and the Caucasus. Almost all this translation work was undertaken under the Church’s auspices and at its initiative.
Similar developments took place in medieval Europe long before the Reformation. In 1271, Jacob van Maerlant produced the first manuscript Dutch Bible, the Reimbibel; in 1471, the first printed Dutch Bible, the Delft Bible, appeared. A Czech Bible translation was made at the Augustinian monastery in Roudnice in 1380; the monk Niccolò Malermi produced a complete Italian translation in 1471; and in 1478, a Valencian translation by the Carthusian monk Bonifatius Ferrer was printed. These are only the best-known examples, mostly translated from the Latin Vulgate. We will consider the German Bible’s history below.
If the Church was so actively involved in vernacular Bible translation, how should we understand the prohibitions occasionally issued by church representatives? These were generally responses to particular circumstances, never universally applicable regulations. They arose in reaction to specific anticlerical movements, sometimes heretical, that sought to produce their own versions of Scripture. Some translations genuinely lacked professional quality or visibly distorted the text. Others were linguistically sound but were prohibited because their translators were political opponents, as happened with Wycliffe and Luther. It would nevertheless be mistaken to claim that the medieval Church opposed Bible translation in principle, as though it were “hiding” something from its flock.
One such prohibition was issued by the Council of Toulouse in 1229: “We also prohibit laypeople from being permitted to possess the books of the Old and New Testaments, unless someone, out of devotion, wishes to have a Psalter or Breviary for the divine offices, or the Hours of the Blessed Virgin; but we most strictly forbid their possessing any translation of these books.” This text is often quoted as evidence that the Church prohibited Bible translation and dissemination altogether. In fact, the ruling was local and circumstantial, connected with the prolonged wars against the Albigensians,2 followers of a Gnostic sect close to Manichaeism. Despite their quasi-Christian teaching, the Albigensians appealed to the Bible and probably possessed their own translations, prompting the prohibition.
Five years later, the Council of Tarragona in Spain, in 1234, issued a similar decree: “No one may possess the books of the Old and New Testaments in the Romance language,3 and anyone who possesses them must surrender them to the local bishop within eight days of this decree’s proclamation, so that they may be burned…” Notice that it was the manuscripts, not the translators, that were to be burned.
The Church’s continuing translation activity after 1229 and 1234 demonstrates that these councils’ rulings were not universal. Most translations into European vernacular languages appeared after those dates and were likewise initiated by the Church.
A similar situation arose with translations made by ideological opponents who nevertheless remained within the Church, unlike the Albigensians. In 1382, an English Bible translation appeared through the work of John Wycliffe, a Catholic priest, theologian and Oxford professor. It was translated from Latin rather than the original languages. This new version became popular even in the manuscript era, with some 200 copies known. But because of its author’s conflict with the pope and association with the anticlerical Lollard movement, it was prohibited by the Oxford synod in 1408 and subsequently by the Council of Constance in 1415.
Wycliffe’s translation was condemned out of concern that it might reflect his anticlerical views—something never actually demonstrated—not because of poor quality or philological inadequacy, and certainly not because Bible translation itself was prohibited. His criticism concerned the Church’s hierarchical organisation, papal authority over English churches and his distinctive understanding of the Eucharist.
Similarly, the translations of Martin Luther (the complete Bible, 1534) and William Tyndale (the New Testament, 1525) were rejected as “Protestant”. Both profoundly influenced the development of literary German and English, a subject deserving an article of its own.
German Bible translations before Luther
As noted above, the medieval Church not only permitted but initiated vernacular translations of Scripture, while exercising caution—sometimes excessive caution—about their quality and their translators’ orthodoxy. German Bible translations before the Reformation offer a vivid example of this work within a particular linguistic setting. Before considering the best-known examples, we should note that almost all were translated not from the original Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek but from Jerome’s Latin Vulgate. This was true not only of German but of European vernacular translations generally: Latin was the language of worship, theology, learning and scholarship, and the Vulgate was regarded as the exemplary translation.
The earliest documented German translation is the Gospel of Matthew from Mondsee Abbey, preserved in the Monseer Fragmente and dated to the ninth century. Written in Old High German, it was probably intended for missionary use.
In the tenth and eleventh centuries, Notker Labeo (950–1022) prepared annotated translations of Psalms 22, 69 and 138 and the Book of Job in Late Old High German.
Fifty fragments of Gospel translations from Vienna and Munich, belonging to the Alemannic-Bavarian linguistic area, survive from the twelfth century.
The Wenceslas Bible was a German translation of the Old Testament, excluding the Minor Prophets and 1 and 2 Maccabees, produced between 1380 and 1400 for King Wenceslas IV of Bohemia in six parchment volumes.
The best-known German Bibles, however, were printed editions appearing in the fifteenth century. One was the Bible printed by Johannes Mentelin in Strasbourg in 1466. Its translator is unknown, although it may have been Mentelin himself. The translation followed the Latin almost word for word, with two columns of 49 lines on each page. It was reprinted thirteen times in Augsburg, Strasbourg, Cologne and Lübeck before Luther’s translation appeared in 1522.
Particularly noteworthy are the so-called vernacular translations—Bible editions in different German dialects. This tradition includes works attributed to an anonymous figure conventionally called the “Austrian Bible Translator” (Österreichischer Bibelübersetzer). Surviving works include a Gospel harmony with five chapters from Acts, the Klosterneuburger Evangelienwerk of 1330, and translations of Genesis, Exodus, Tobit and Daniel in the Schlierbacher Altes Testament. The same broad group includes the Cologne Bible of 1478–1479, translated into Low Saxon and Low Rhenish dialects and containing 123 woodcuts. It was reviewed by three publishers: Heinrich Quentell, Bartholomäus von Unkel and Anton Koberger. Interestingly, the Song of Songs remained untranslated in Latin—perhaps to preserve a sense of mystery.
Another vernacular version was the Lübeck Bible of 1494, an annotated translation into Low Saxon with 152 woodcuts, published by Steffen Arndes.
The Halberstadt Bible of 1522, also in Low Saxon, reused 112 woodcuts from the Cologne Bible and followed the Lübeck text except for the Psalms and some Old Testament passages. Yet publisher Anton Koberger’s project proved a financial failure: Luther’s New Testament appeared that same year, and the Halberstadt Bible could not compete.
The second half of the fifteenth century therefore saw numerous printed German Bible translations based on Jerome’s Latin version. Significantly, these editions were intended for broad use across different social groups in the German lands. Most were commercial publications authorised by the Church.
Martin Luther’s translation
If the Church had not prohibited German Bible translation, and several widely distributed printed versions already existed, including vernacular ones, what was innovative about Luther’s work? What did he contribute to the dissemination of Scripture?
Several important features made his translation an epoch-making event. They concern both the new version’s linguistic qualities and his approach to translation.
First, Luther translated from the original Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek rather than settling for a “translation of a translation” based on Jerome’s Latin. He knew all three biblical languages as well as Latin, the scholarly language of his day, although he knew Latin better than Hebrew and Aramaic. This approach established a new trend in biblical translation theory and practice. It was reflected in William Tyndale’s English New Testament, published in 1525, three years after Luther’s New Testament of 1522.
Second, Luther combined reverence for the wording of Scripture with syntactic adaptation to German usage. His translation reads fluently while rendering biblical metaphors and poetic language with sensitivity. He did not merely create clear, graceful metaphors by reproducing biblical expressions; he clothed them in East Central German and made them part of literary German. He moved away from the word-for-word approach dominant in translations from Latin and concentrated on the meaning of the text, its Textsinn.
Third, Luther created a German literary language understandable to speakers of different dialects, drawing on East Central German (Ostmitteldeutsch), which underlay the language of the Saxon chancery.
Fourth, the German of Luther’s Bible was not simply colloquial speech but a carefully developed and standardised vernacular. Its stylistic sophistication is evident in expressions based on biblical language: Stein des Anstoßes (“stumbling block”), ein Dorn im Auge (“a thorn in the eye”), and sein Licht unter den Scheffel stellen (“to put one’s light under a bushel”). He also introduced lexical innovations such as Heuchler (“hypocrite”), Hügel (“hill”), Scheune (“barn”) and Kahn (“boat”). Where necessary, he gave German words new meanings: anfahren, “to rebuke”, originally “to drive into”; verfassen, “to compose a text”, originally “to draw together” or “to grasp”; and fromm, “pious”, originally “proper” or “honest”.
These qualities made Luther’s New Testament extraordinarily popular. Three thousand copies of the first edition were sold in September 1522, despite its considerable price, and it was reprinted 85 times over the next decade. The translation was based on the Greek New Testament published by Erasmus of Rotterdam, the Textus Receptus.
Luther’s translation combines accessible language with a sacred register. The view that he deliberately made the language simplistic is exaggerated and often rests on his own statement: “… You need not ask the Latin letters … rather, ask the mother in the home and the ordinary person in the marketplace; watch their mouths as they speak, and then translate.” In reality, he worked painstakingly on language. This is evident not only in the idioms, syntax and coherence already discussed but also in his neologisms: Feuereifer (“fiery zeal”), Denkzettel (“reminder”), holdselig (“gracious” or “lovely”), and Gnadenstuhl (“mercy seat”), among others.
After the New Testament, portions of the Old Testament began to appear: the Pentateuch in 1523, Joshua and Esther in 1524, and a revised Psalter in 1531. Between 1526 and 1532, Luther worked with Philipp Melanchthon and Matthäus Aurogallus on the Prophets, published in 1532. The complete Bible appeared in 1534.
Despite its success among readers, Luther’s translation met with prohibition and rejection from his opponents. In 1522, Duke George prohibited its circulation in his Saxon territories. In 1527, an alternative New Testament by Hieronymus Emser appeared, which was essentially Luther’s translation “purified”, or revised, to accord with Catholic theology.
Genuinely alternative Catholic translations also appeared. In 1534, Johann Dietenberger published Biblia beider Allt und Newen Testamenten, new verdeutscht, which went through 58 reprints, including revisions by Caspar Ulenberg and the Mainz Jesuits. In 1537, Johannes Eck, Luther’s opponent at the Leipzig Disputation of 1519, published a Bible in the Upper German Bavarian dialect.
Luther’s Bible has been revised many times. An early revised edition appeared in 1546 as the Wittenberg Bible; further revisions followed in 1548, 1555, 1892, 1912, 1956, 1964 (Old Testament), 1970 (Apocrypha), 1984 (New Testament), and 2017.
At the time of writing, there are 35 different German Bible translations, including three revised versions of Luther’s translation: those of 1912, 1984 and 2017.
Notes
1. “The Black Legend” (Spanish: La leyenda negra) is a term introduced by Spanish historian Julián Juderías in 1914 to describe exaggerations in Protestant, chiefly Dutch, propaganda about crimes of the Catholic Church, particularly the Inquisition. Strongly anti-Spanish, it circulated during the Counter-Reformation (1560–1648) and later entered popular culture. It often relied on invented grotesque imagery and exaggerated portrayals of medieval ecclesiastical power.
2. The Albigensian wars, or crusades against the Albigensians and Cathars, lasted from 1209 to 1229. After the Third Lateran Council condemned the Albigensian heresy in 1179, Pope Innocent III attempted to bring its adherents back into the Church through diplomacy. Following the murder of the papal legate Pierre de Castelnau in 1208, however, the pope proclaimed a crusade, inviting nobles who had joined the Albigensians to lay down their arms voluntarily. Fighting continued in Languedoc in southern France until 1229.
3. That is, one of the living vernacular languages—Italian, French, Occitan and others—as opposed to Latin.
Dmytro Tsolin, Doctor of Philology, Professor in the Department of Biblical Studies at the Ukrainian Catholic University, Lviv