Luther Bible | |
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![]() Martin Luther's 1534 Bible | |
Full name | Biblia / das ist / die gantze Heilige Schrifft Deudsch |
Abbreviation | LUT |
OT published | 1534 |
NT published | 1522 |
Complete Bible published | 1534[1] |
Apocrypha | |
Authorship | |
Textual basis |
|
Version revision | 1984 (last official revision) |
Publisher | Hans Lufft |
Copyright | Public domain due to age |
Religious affiliation | |
Am anfang schuff Gott Himel vnd Erden. Vnd die Erde war wüst und leer / und es war finster auff der Tieffe / Vnd der Geist Gottes schwebet auff dem Wasser. Und Gott sprach / Es werde Liecht / Und es ward Liecht. (1545 revised 5th edition)[3] |
The Luther Bible (German: Lutherbibel) is a German language Bible translation by the Protestant reformer Martin Luther. A New Testament translation by Luther was first published in September 1522, and the completed Bible, containing a translation of the Old and New Testaments with Apocrypha, in 1534. Luther continued to make improvements to the text until 1545. It was the one of first full translations of the Bible into German that used not only the Latin Vulgate but also the Greek.[5]
Luther did not translate the entire Bible by himself; he relied on a team of translators and helpers that included Philip Melanchthon, a scholar of Koine Greek who motivated and assisted Luther's New Testament translation from Greek, and Matthäus Aurogallus, a linguist and scholar of Hebrew. One of the textual bases of the New Testament translation was the Latin and Greek versions, and its philological annotations, recently published by the Dutch Catholic humanist Erasmus of Rotterdam and called the Novum Testamentum omne (1519).
The project absorbed Luther's later years.[6] The publication of Luther's Bible was a decisive moment in the spread of literacy in early modern Germany,[1] promoting the development of non-local forms of language and exposing all speakers to forms of German from outside their own areas.[7] Thanks to the then recently invented printing press,[8] the result was widely disseminated and contributed significantly to the development of today's modern High German language.[1]
Wenn nun Doctor [Luther] zuvor die außgangen Bibel vbersehen und darneben bey Juden vnnd frembden sprachkündigen sich erlernet vnd sich bey alten Deutschen von guten worten erfragt hatte, Wie er ihm etlich Schöps abstechen ließ, damit jn ein Deutscher Fleischer berichtet, wie man ein jedes am Schaf nennete, kam Doctor in das Consistorium mit seiner alten Lateinischen und newen Deutschen Biblien, darbey er auch stettigs den Hebreischen text hatte. Herr Philippus bracht mit sich den Greckischen text, Doctor Creuziger neben dem Hebreischen die Chaldeische Bibel. Die Professores hatten bey sich jre Rabinen, D. Pommer het auch ein Lateinischen text für sich, darinn er sehr wol bekant war. Zuvor hat sich ein jeder auff den text gerüst, davon man rathschlagen solte, Greckische unnd Lateinische neben den Jüdischen außlegern vbersehen. Darauff proponirt diser President [Luther] ein text und ließ die stimm herumb gehen und höret was ein jeder darzu zu reden hette, nach eygenschaft der sprache oder nach der alten Doctorn außlegung.
[Rough translation: After Doctor Luther had translated the original Bible, learning from Jews, from foreign language scholars, and from old Germans in the process (for example, he asked a German butcher to slaughter some wethers for him so he could tell him how the different entrails are called), he came to the consistory with his old Latin Bible and with his new German Bible. He also always carried the Hebrew text with him. Herr Philippus contributed the Greek text, Doctor Creuziger contributed the Hebrew text and the Chaldaic Bible. The Professors also brought their Rabbinic Bibles, and Doctor Pommer had a Latin text which he knew very well. Before the meetings, everyone of them studied the text that was to be translated, to discuss the translation of the Greek and Latin version along with the Hebrew exegesis. Luther then proposed a text and asked and listened to what everyone had to say concerning the language or the interpretation.]