#Luther #Bible #translation

“The Bible is the nurse on whose breast the German language arose; monastic biblical education is the home in which this child grew to maturity, turning into a literary language. Martin Luther, the Wittenberg monk and reformer, is perhaps the greatest witness to this historical and linguistic fact.

When people today hear the name Martin Luther, most of the time they think of the reformer from Wittenberg, who in the 16th century, according to some, renovated, and according to others, split the church. This point of view is understandable, but in its exclusivity it closes one of the secondary aspects of the work of the Greater Wittenberger, which is most significant for the language. As Luther advocated the renewal of the church, he also achieved a language-forming role. It was the decisive weapon of the Reformation: the spoken and written word.

How did Luther come to this? The answer is closely related to literary creativity Luther, first of all, in his work on the translation of the Bible. The plan to translate the Bible came to Luther in 1521 during his hiding place in the Wartburg. In mid-December 1521, he began by translating the New Testament into German and completed this work in eleven weeks. In September 1522, the work was printed ("September Bible"). Luther then set about translating the Old Testament from Hebrew and Latin, but this work, for some reason, was not completed until 1534. Until 1546, when Luther died, this complete Bible was printed twice at Wittenberg, and subsequently reprinted a total of eighteen times at Leipzig, Worms, Strasbourg, Augsburg, and Zurich. Luther, by the way, was not the first to attempt to translate the Bible into German. The origins of the German tradition of Bible translation lie in the 8th century. There are traces of complete German manuscripts of the Bible from the late Middle Ages. In 1466, Johannes Mentel presented the first printed Bible in highly literary German (the so-called Mentel Bible). Up until the advent of Luther's September Bible, more than fifteen Bibles had been printed, some of which Luther knew and used. “But he left them all far behind him with his accessible German, which no translator had mastered before in the same way,” said Hans Eggers. What came in handy was Luther's humanistic education. Humanists had access to sources, could use the Bible texts in the original language and the best manuscripts, as well as textual printouts and commentaries. All this has created a reliable basis for high-quality translation. In addition, Luther was indebted to the humanists for the methods of textological work on translation samples, and also knew how to brilliantly handle all the means of grammar and translation available to him. The art of Luther's translation was based on a tireless effort to create a translation of the Bible that every German could understand. To achieve this, Luther strove for natural simplicity in translation, such as "mothers in the house, children in the lanes, men in the market."

In order to make the content of Scripture understandable even to uneducated amateurs, Luther, as a translator, constantly trained in theory and practice. In his open letter To interpreters (1530), he reports the difficulties that arise when translating texts from Greek, Latin, and, above all, Hebrew. This was especially true of the psalms, sayings and the book of Job, which are fraught with the danger for the translator to mistranslate a difficult Hebrew text incorrectly or inaccurately. Therefore, Luther, from edition to edition of his works, was looking for new opportunities to accurately convey the content.

Luther pursued the "ideal of artistic simplicity" - people should not only understand the Holy Scriptures, but also willingly read it. Therefore, along with the choice of words, much attention was also paid to other linguistic subtleties, such as the melody of a sentence, the rhythm of a sentence, the fluidity of speech, and - where possible - he even used the stylistic means of poetry. Luther understood that his efforts to introduce people to the Bible could only be successful when these texts could be perceived in different places. To this end, he used a relatively simple method: in order to translate Hebrew, Greek and Latin concepts correctly and intelligibly, he collected, as far as possible, as many of the German correspondences from different regions. Then he made a good choice in favor of the option that was understood both in Halle and in Freiburg, both in Cologne and in Vienna. In an open letter to interpreters, he writes: “Nevertheless, whoever wants to translate must have a great lexicon so that he can have a choice.“

Nevertheless, his linguistic genius consisted not only in the creation of new concepts and in the choice of commonly understood expressions, but, above all, in the intention to give the content of the Bible to people really in their language. This became possible only due to the fact that Luther, when translating, put the emphasis not on the exact transmission of words, but on the transmission of the written meaning and context as a whole. This fact was even reproached to Luther for having dealt too loosely with the text of Scripture. However, he did not let the critics feel guilty.

Thus, Martin Luther not only left behind a sample of literary prose that has passed through the centuries, but also gave many people a Bible that could touch their hearts.

The author of the article is Thomas Domagny, Ph.D., Professor of Ethics and Social Theology at the Friedensau Theological School (2003-2015);
Translation from German language carried out by the Progressive Adventist community

German Bible by Martin Luther

A German humanist, one of the "fathers" of the Reformation - Martin Luther (1483-1546) - can rightfully be considered the father of the modern German language. Historians of the German language believe that the role of Luther for the formation and development of the German language is as great as the role of Cicero for Latin. The main brainchild of Luther the philologist was the translation of the Bible into German.

In 1522 in Wittenberg comes out New Testament- German translation by Luther (Das Neue Testament Teutsch). The work on the translation took only three months. But the subsequent translation Old Testament dragged on for many years. A complete translation of the Bible was not published until 1534. Naturally, Luther did not work on the translation alone. In Wittenberg, something like a "translation workshop" was formed, the main master of which was Luther. He was assisted by his friend and follower Melanchthon and other scholars, experts in Greek, Hebrew and Latin and in the interpretation of biblical texts.

The main thing in assessing Luther's translation work is not what he was able to do new translation Bible, but what language he translated it.

The purpose of this new translation was to give contemporaries the text of the Bible in a language they understood, in which they communicated with each other every day.

Luther to a certain extent continues the tradition of Jerome in the translation of texts Holy Scripture- translate not words, but meanings. In his work on the translation of the Bible, he sees much in common with what Jerome had to experience. First of all, it is the constant need to explain to ignorant churchmen the meaning of their translation decisions. In his famous "Epistle on Translation" Luther compares himself with Jerome: "So it was with Saint Jerome: when he was translating the Bible, the whole world was his master, only he did not understand anything in his business, and they judged the work of a good man who was unworthy even to clean his shoes." Luther and Jerome are also united by the fact that both translators of the Bible presented their views on translation in the form of epistles, trying to explain their translation strategy to their contemporaries. And Jerome's "Letter to Pammachius" subtitled "O the best way translation”, and Luther’s “Epistle on Translation” have become part of the golden fund of theoretical treatises on translation and allow today's translators to judge what problems their colleagues had to solve in the past.

The translation of the Bible reflects the concept of Luther the Reformer. One of the main provisions of his spiritual conception was that the only source of faith is Holy Scripture, and that every believer should be free to interpret it.

The translation strategy is based on this concept: firstly, to make the translation text meaningfully correct and accurate, as much as possible corresponding to the original text, and secondly, to make it understandable and accessible to everyone.

The translation of the Bible, made under the leadership of Luther, became one of the world's masterpieces of biblical translation, which influenced the development of translation practice not only in Germany, but throughout Europe. All subsequent translations of the Bible into German are based on Luther's version, correcting and supplementing his text in accordance with state of the art German language with modern scientific knowledge.

This translation laid the foundations for a common German national literary language and became a literary monument of paramount importance. In an effort to create a common German language for the whole nation, Luther did a great linguistic job, developing spelling norms, phonetic transcription, ordering grammatical forms. After the publication of Luther's Bible, the German language began to more and more confidently win back positions from Latin as the language of scientific communication and literature.

Luther's translation of the Bible and the Reformation proved to be a revolutionary moment in the triumphal march of the great book. Before Luther, there were eighteen Bibles printed in German. But they abounded in so many flaws that they were not widely used. Reading the Bible was also hampered by the fact that at the time of Luther there was still no single German language, the country spoke a variety of different dialects. The genius of Martin Luther helped overcome all obstacles. After the Reichstag in Worms, Luther had to hide in the Wartburg. The great reformer used the forced inactivity to translate the New Testament and made it in an incredibly short time - from December 1521 to March 1522. And in September 1522, the New Testament translated by him was printed by Melchior Lottat in Wittenberg. It is called the September Testament. 5,000 copies sold out instantly, and already in December of the same year, a second, revised edition (December Testament) was published. From 1522 to 1533 Luther produced seventeen editions.

More time was needed to translate the Old Testament. Luther made it together with Philip Melanchthon in five years: (1529-1534). In the Letter of Translation, he relates the difficulties both husbands had to face: single word and sometimes never got an answer.

In September 1534, the first Wittenberg Bible finally appeared, published in the German literary language and printed by Hans Luft. The demand for Luther's translation was so great that before his death in 1546, thirteen editions appeared, each time revised and improved by Luther and his friends. The Wittenberg printer Hans Luft printed approximately 100,000 Bibles between 1534 and 1584. greatest achievement for your time! Luther's Bible was reprinted at four locations outside of Wittenberg.

Luther based his translation on "Saxon clerical language" and this was a good choice. He strove to write in such a way that the text was easily understood by the common people. “You need to ask the mother in the house, the children on the street, common man in the market, look into their mouths as they speak, and translate in the same way. Then they understand that they are being spoken to in German,” Luther explained in the Message of Translation.

Luther's ability to penetrate deeply into the content of Scripture and his good sense of language made the Bible folk book in Germany, which decisively contributed to the emergence of a single literary language in the country. How strongly Luther's Bible influenced people's lives, culture, literature and art is shown, among others, by the fact that 705 now common catchphrases are of Biblical origin: 368 words from the Old Testament and 337 from the New Testament (according to Buchmann). Who today does not remember every time that he is quoting the Bible when he says that he has been pierced “to the joints and brains” (Heb. 4:12), that he wants to “wash his hands in innocence” (Matt. 27:24) or “smitten blindness" (Gen. 19:11; 2 Sam. 6:18), that "as if the scales fell off the eyes" (Acts 9:18) or would like to "pour out his heart" (1 Sam. 1:15; Ps 61:9), or that he wrote "a letter a cubit long" (Zech. 5:2)?!

The deeply folk language of Luther, the scholarship of the author of the translation ensured his work an extraordinary success. But they are not alone. Martin Luther himself experienced the power of the gospel. His faith and deep piety lived on the Word of God. Luther built phrases not only with his mind! The Word of God was passed on by the one who himself was inspired by it!

Luther's New Testament was warmly received in Switzerland, where Zwingli and Calvin led the Reformation. In this country, too, they took up the translation of the Bible. And before Luther had finished translating the Old Testament into German, the "Zurich Bible" was published, which is of the greatest value even today. Subsequent translations, carried out by representatives of various nations, are based mainly on the Luther Bible.

The Bible is called the "Book of books" because it is the Word of God, and no book can equal it in this respect. But in many other ways the Bible surpasses all other books. As we already know, it is the first "real" book in form. But, in addition, it also became the first translated, the first printed and, finally, the first book of world significance.

Some of its texts were translated into other languages ​​already in very ancient times. As far as is known, the Bible was the first book to be translated in its entirety. This refers to the translation of the Old Testament from Hebrew into Greek - the Septuagint.

Legend tells that King Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285-246 B.C.) wanted to acquire the Holy Scriptures of the Jews in Greek translation for his famous library in Alexandria and asked the Jewish high priest to purchase the Bible. In response, the high priest sent seventy-two learned scribes to the king, six from each of the twelve tribes of Israel. These seventy-two men - each on their own, working in a separate cell - were supposed to translate the Bible. Not only did they finish the translations at the same time - all the resulting texts sounded exactly the same! After which the Septuagint was called the "Translation of the Seventy".

In reality, however, things happened somewhat differently. In the last centuries before new era in Egypt, especially in Alexandria, founded by Alexander the Great in 332 BC, there were many Jews. They spoke in Greek, and therefore the need for its translation appeared. So in the III century. BC began to translate the Old Testament writings, completed only in the next century.

The Septuagint was also the Bible of the Apostles. They could quote from it in their travels through the countries of the Mediterranean and Asia Minor, since Greek language was then international language. And today we are grateful to the nameless scribes for the opportunity to read the Septuagint. For a translation produced at a time when Hebrew was still a living language is of inestimable value for the study of biblical texts.

New translations of the Bible appeared in the first Christian centuries. The best known of these is the Latin translation, the Vulgate, begun in AD 386 by the learned Jerome and completed by him in 405.

The first German Bible, translated by Ulfila, "the Apostle of the Goths," dates back to the 4th century. But first he had to create a Gothic font. So the Ulfilas Bible simultaneously became the first monument of Gothic writing. A particularly valuable copy of the Gothic Bible - purple-dyed parchment with silver and gold type - is preserved today in the Swedish city of Uppsala, Sweden.

In the 15th century, new horizons opened up in many areas human life. In 1492 Columbus discovered America, and in 1498 Vasco da Gama discovered the sea route to India. Even more significant than these world-shaking events, however, was the invention of printing.

As a matter of fact, books have been printed before by carving type or images on wooden plates. But Johannes Gutenberg invented movable type printing. Now it was possible to make a set of individual letters, and after printing, disassemble it and use the font for new job. Gutenberg was the first to print a Latin Bible, a voluminous folio with more than 320 double sheets of large format. Gutenberg worked on it from 1452 to 1455. The skins of one hundred and seventy calves were needed to prepare sheets of parchment.

The art of printing spread throughout Europe with extraordinary rapidity. In 1466, ten years after the appearance of the first Gutenberg Bible, Johann Mentelin produced the first printed German Bible in Strasbourg.

These first-printed Bibles could not, of course, be acquired by ordinary people. At the end of the 15th century, the price of three breeding bulls was paid for one copy. However, the demand for the Bible was great. The invention of printing opened up new opportunities for the design of the "Book of Books" and its distribution.

Luther's translation of the Bible and the Reformation proved to be a revolutionary moment in the triumphal march of the great book. Before Luther, there were eighteen Bibles printed in German. But they abounded in so many flaws that they were not widely used. Reading the Bible was also hampered by the fact that at the time of Luther there was still no single German language, the country spoke many different dialects. The genius of Martin Luther helped overcome all obstacles. After the Reichstag in Worms, Luther had to hide in the Wartburg. The great reformer used the forced inactivity to translate the New Testament and made it in an incredibly short time - from December 1521 to March 1522. And in September 1522, the New Testament translated by him was printed by Melchior Lottat in Wittenberg. It is called the September Testament. 5,000 copies sold out instantly, and already in December of the same year, a second, revised edition (December Testament) was published. From 1522 to 1533 Luther produced seventeen editions.

More time was needed to translate the Old Testament. Luther made it together with Philip Melanchthon in five years: (1529-1534). In the Letter of Translation, he describes the difficulties both husbands had to face: “It happened quite often that for two, three, even four weeks we searched and asked about one single word, and sometimes we did not find an answer.”

In September 1534, the first Wittenberg Bible finally appeared, published in the German literary language and printed by Hans Luft. The demand for Luther's translation was so great that before his death in 1546, thirteen editions appeared, each time revised and improved by Luther and his friends. The Wittenberg printer Hans Luft printed approximately 100,000 Bibles from 1534 to 1584 - the greatest achievement of his time! Luther's Bible was reprinted at four locations outside of Wittenberg.

Luther based his translation on "Saxon clerical language" and this was a good choice. He strove to write in such a way that the text was easily understood by the common people. “You need to ask a mother in the house, children on the street, a simple person in the market, look into their mouths, as they say, and translate in the same way. Then they understand that they are being spoken to in German,” Luther explained in his Message of Translation.

The ability to deeply penetrate the content of Scripture and the good sense of language inherent in Luther made the Bible a popular book in Germany, which decisively contributed to the emergence of a single literary language in the country. How strongly Luther's Bible influenced people's lives, culture, literature and art is shown, among others, by the fact that 705 now common catchphrases are of Biblical origin: 368 words from the Old Testament and 337 from the New Testament (according to Buchmann). Who today does not remember every time that he is quoting the Bible when he says that he was pierced “to the joints and brains” (Hebrews 4:12), that he wants to “wash his hands in innocence” (Matthew 27:24) or “smitten with blindness” (Genesis 19:11; 2 Samuel 6:18) that "as if the scales fell from the eyes" (Acts 9:18) or would like to "pour out his heart" (1 Samuel 1:15; Psalm 61:9) , or that he wrote "a letter the length of a cubit" (Zechariah 5:2)?!

The deeply folk language of Luther, the scholarship of the author of the translation ensured his work an extraordinary success. But they are not alone. Martin Luther himself experienced the power of the gospel. His faith and deep piety lived on the Word of God. Luther built phrases not only with his mind! The Word of God was passed on by the one who himself was inspired by it!

Luther's New Testament was warmly received in Switzerland, where Zwingli and Calvin led the Reformation. In this country, too, they took up the translation of the Bible. And before Luther had finished translating the Old Testament into German, the "Zurich Bible" was published, which is of the greatest value even today. Subsequent translations, carried out by representatives of various nations, are based mainly on the Luther Bible.

The September Testament of 1522 sold for one and a half guilders. By the way, one could live on eight golden guilders for a year. However, this edition of the New Testament was considered cheap compared to earlier Bibles. For example, a Bible from 1430 cost 300 gold guilders, a Latin from 1450 about 60, and the first printed German Bible of Mentelin (without binding) sold for 12 gold guilders. Subsequently, the purchase price of the Bible remained just as high. For it had to pay the cost of a team of draft bulls. A commoner, of course, could not afford such a purchase. However, now the Word of God could be heard in many parts of Europe, as well as buy, with money, Holy Scripture. August Hermann Franke, founder of the orphanages in Halle, lamented that the Bible was still out of reach for many people due to its high cost. The Berlin Baron von Kanstein, his associate and brother, shared Franke's concerns. Kanstein proposed to found a society for the production and distribution of cheap Bibles. With donations, they purchased a sufficient number of letters so that the printing house could save, without scattering every time, a set of Bibles. This greatly reduced the cost of printing. On October 21, 1710, the Kanstein Bible Society began its activities. The principle of the world's first such society was the following: "... Excluding profit in printing and publishing, produce the Bible in a public benefit enterprise, not oriented to profit, and distribute it at cost."

As a result, the price of the New Testament became two pennies, and the full Bible, nine pennies. In the following decades, every tenth German had a Bible.

A similar situation exists in England. As early as 1800, there were very few Bibles in the country with a very high demand. The situation was changed by one girl, herself, however, not knowing about it. Mary Jones of Wells once a week made a very long journey, going to her friend to read the only Bible in the whole area. Mary really wanted to have her own holy book, and diligently saved up money for it. Six years later, she collected the required amount. The girl went to the pastor and asked for a Bible. He thought for a moment and then said that only Pastor Charles from Bala, a city forty kilometers from their parish, could help her. Mary set off again and made her request to Pastor Charles. He became sad and began to pace his office thoughtfully. Then he asked, “So is it true that you saved money for a Bible for six years, and yesterday you walked forty kilometers to finally buy it? Yes Mary? Alas, I have to disappoint you: I cannot give you the Bible.”

The girl burst into tears.

“Mary,” the pastor said then, “look here, I have only two Bibles in this closet, and both have already been sold. But at my own risk, I will give you one. You must not return home empty-handed."

This story was told by Pastor Charles in 1802 at a meeting of a religious society in London, supplementing his story with a request to find a way to print the Bible for the poor people in Wells. In response, Baptist preacher Hughes jumped up from his seat and exclaimed, "Why just for Wells, why not for the Kingdom, why not for the whole world?"

The hour of the great awakening has struck. After the pastor's excited speech about the lack of Bibles in many countries, on March 7, 1804, with a large assembly of people (over 600 people were present), the British and Foreign Bible Society was founded. Soon other organizations of this kind arose in Basel (1804), Philadelphia (1808), Finland 1812, Amsterdam (1814), Elberfeld (1814), Berlin (1814), Dresden (1814), New York (1815), Scotland and Norway (1816). These Bible Societies have adopted von Kanstein's founding principle that the publisher does not make any profit. Societies widely introduced technical innovations in their printing houses, such as, for example, a high-speed printing press (1810). From now on, it became possible to publish the Bible in previously unthinkable editions.

The Bible Societies were also concerned with translating the Word of God into other languages. The missionaries went all over the world. They penetrated the jungles of Africa, into the Middle and South America, in remote areas of Asia. They also needed Bibles. Often missionaries began by creating a written language for the locals, and the Bible became the first book from which the natives learned to read.

Bible Societies now have entire institutes dedicated to translation. Several languages ​​are added every year, which are spoken somewhere in the wilds of the jungle or in the steppe expanses of recently discovered areas. Here, in the near future, there must also be a Bible of its own.

The spread of the Bible in our age has reached astonishing proportions. The statistics, of course, counted not only the number of books of the complete Bible, but also separately the New Testament and various rare editions. Indeed, in some dialects, which are spoken by only a few tribes, one single book of the Bible was published.

Here are the statistics:

1900 - 8 million Bibles;

1950 - 22 million, of which about 2.5 million are complete Bibles;

1960 - 35 million, of which about 4 million are complete Bibles;

1970 - 145 million, of which about 5 million are complete Bibles;

1980 - 440 million, of which about 9.5 million are complete Bibles.

The number of languages ​​into which the Bible or parts of it have been translated is also impressive:

1600 - 40 languages;

1700 - 52 languages;

1800 - 71 languages;

1900 - 567 languages;

1950 - 1034 languages;

1965 - 1250 languages;

1985 - 1829 languages.

According to experts, the world speaks 3,000 languages ​​and dialects. Of these, more than 1,500 are used only by relatively small ethnic groups. Without a doubt, the Bible remains a bestseller in our time. No book is in such wide demand as the Holy Scriptures, and no book has been translated into so many languages. The Bible is truly a book of books!

Bible translated by Luther

The Bible is the foundation Christian life And Christian culture. Right now, when the souls of millions of our compatriots are turning to God and looking for answers to the main questions of life, interest in the Bible, its content and origin has increased unusually in our country.

The role of the Word of God is especially great in Protestantism, one of the three main directions of Christianity.

In Protestant churches, the Bible is carefully studied not only by pastors, but by all believers, and its Word is embodied in their lives.

At the same time, in recent decades, we have had very little popular research on Protestant culture.

But she played and continues to play one of the dominant roles not only in European culture but also worldwide.

The essay brought to your attention is devoted to the "cornerstone" of Protestant culture - the first translation of the Bible into the vernacular, carried out by Martin Luther.

From the very beginning, the true Church was established "on the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, having Jesus Christ Himself as the cornerstone" (Eph. 2:20). The teaching of the prophets, set forth in the books of the Old Testament, and the New Testament teaching of the Apostles were the foundation of the entire life of the Church.

The Bible was a guide to all the actions of believers, constantly read by them, discussed and interpreted. “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, with all wisdom,” the apostle calls (Col. 3:16).

The earliest, Apostolic Church zealously studied the Old Testament (Acts 1:15-20; 2 Pet. 1:19). And after the appearance of the New Testament books, they began to be constantly read aloud and explained at the meeting of believers.

“Blessed is he who reads and hears the words of this prophecy, and keeps what is written in it,” exclaims the Apostle John (Rev. 1:3).

It is clear that the observance of the Word of God is preceded by its reading and understanding.

It must be heard - not only with external hearing, but also with the heart.

The Apostle Paul calls the Word of God "the sword of the Spirit" (Eph. 6:17), the strongest weapon against the forces of evil. It is not surprising, therefore, that the dark forces have always taken up arms against the Word of God with the greatest fury, trying to prevent the spread of the Bible, to prevent or stop its study.

In the Middle Ages, an era began in which, it would seem, these dark forces achieved their goal: on behalf of the prelates of the official church, formidable decrees were issued that forbade ordinary believers not only to study, but also to read the Bible itself.

This was done in direct contradiction to the words of Jesus Christ: "Search the Scriptures" (John 5:39). And this happened in fulfillment of what He foretold: “Beware that no one deceives you; For many will come under my name and say that it is I, and they will deceive many” (Mark 13:5-6).

Under His name and hiding behind His authority, i.e. calling themselves Christians, “fierce wolves, not sparing the flock” entered the Church (Acts 20:29). Some of the higher hierarchs of the ruling Church, contrary to the teachings of the Gospel, gave themselves over to covetousness — “the deceitfulness of bribes, like Balaam” (Jude 1:11).

They tried to extinguish the light of the Word of God that convicted them, or at least to hide it. Jesus Christ teaches us: “And having lighted a candle, they do not put it under a vessel, but on a candlestick, and it gives light to everyone in the house” (Matt. 5:15).

It is said about the Word of God: “Thy word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Ps. 118:105). It was this lamp, called to shine for everyone in the house of God, that the dark forces did their best to hide, “put under a vessel.”

At the same time, the Bible, not at first glance, remained in the dominant Church the subject of the deepest reverence. She was solemnly carried out of the altar during the Divine service. Extracts were read aloud from it. Latin, for most parishioners incomprehensible. Oaths were taken and oaths were taken on it. But its content for centuries remained for the people "a book with seven seals" ...

Some researchers are still trying to prove today that the people's ignorance of the Bible in those days had objective reasons.

Firstly, handwritten books were very expensive and few people had access to them.

Secondly, if the peoples who spoke the Romance languages ​​(Italian, French, Spanish and some others) could still partly understand the text of the Latin Bible - the Vulgate (just as we partly hear the Church Slavonic language), then the peoples of the Germanic group ( Germans, Dutch, British and others) without special education could not understand a word of the Vulgate.

But such evidence is baseless.

First, the Primal Apostolic Church, as you know, consisted of people who knew well and constantly studied the Scriptures.

Secondly, already among the Jews from ancient times, the tradition of teaching children Holy Books, and in the Middle Ages they, for the most part, knew the Old Testament well.

But in early Christian times, and in the Middle Ages, up to the 15th century, all books were copied by hand!

Finally, the very situation in which only the text of the Vulgate was used in the Church (however, even the laity were strictly forbidden to read and study it!) speaks for itself.

The prelates of the ruling Church became especially intolerant towards believers who were interested in Scripture after the suppression of the "heresies" of the 12th-13th centuries - the movement of the Cathars (Albigensians) and others.

Indeed, among the "heretics" who were exterminated by tens and hundreds of thousands, there were many who called for a return to the spirit and letter of the Gospel! And all the more dangerous was the acquaintance of the people with the Bible to the authorities.

The Inquisition, created to suppress "heresies", acted vigilantly.

One of the Italians of the 16th century - Antonio del Pagliarichi - exclaimed:

"It's almost impossible, being a Christian, to die in your bed!" This is how the prophecy of the Apostle Paul came true: “Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Tim. 3:12).

In those days, it was passed from mouth to mouth in a whisper famous phrase: "If Christ were incarnated in our days a second time, he would immediately be crucified or burned alive by the Inquisition."

Looking ahead, let's say that after the translation of the Bible into the vernacular languages ​​of Europe, the persecution of believers by the Inquisition became even more severe.

Such was the force of evil with which the fighters for the Reformation entered into a spiritual battle. And one of the most important things was to enable the people to read the Bible in their native language...

Even before Luther's translation of the Holy Scriptures, lists of the Bible in different translations were already circulating in Germany. But they did not at all reflect the features of the Hebrew and Greek original.

The books of Scripture were often incomplete. The literary level of translations was low. And, finally, the translations were always carried out into some local dialect of the German language.

In this sense, Saxony, the area where Luther lived, was the most suitable place for a common German translation of Scripture: here was the historical and geographical crossroads of all German lands, here a common German literary language began to take shape.

The idea of ​​putting the Bible into the hands of believers in their native language arose in Luther shortly after his famous burning of the papal bull that excommunicated him from the Roman Catholic Church.

This event is considered the "second step" of the Reformation ("the first step" - 95 Theses against the sale of indulgences, written by Luther in 1517). In 1521, a year after the burning of the bull, Luther was summoned by Emperor Charles V to the Landtag in Worms, where he was asked to "renounce his views before it's too late."

Luther's response in defense of personal faith based on Bible study produced great impression on many German princes who were present at the same time. And one of them - the Elector of Saxony Frederick the Wise - with the help of his knights "kidnapped" Luther on his way back from Worms and hid in the Wartburg castle, fearing that otherwise the reformer would be hunted down and killed by agents of the Vatican.

It was in the Wartburg that Luther set about his Bible translations. He began with the New Testament and then moved on to the Pentateuch of Moses. The year 1521 was drawing to a close. The whole translation of the Bible took 12 years - from 1522 to 1534.

These were the years of extreme tension of all spiritual, emotional, physical forces of Martin Luther, who realized what a great task, in terms of its responsibility and significance for the people, the Lord had entrusted to him.

Luther, who had a good theological education and spoke several languages, nevertheless did not consider himself fully prepared for the translation of Scripture.

He enthusiastically devoted himself to a thorough study of the Hebrew and Greek originals of the Bible, invited to himself, as his closest assistants, the greatest scientists in Germany - experts in ancient languages.

Among them were: his closest associate, the reformer Philip Melanchthon, who had an excellent command of ancient Greek; Aurogallus is a Hebrew teacher at the University of Wittenberg; Kruziger is a connoisseur of the Aramaic (otherwise called Chaldean) language; Bugenhagen, who was well versed in the intricacies of the Latin in which the Vulgate was written; there were other theologians.

During the translation, different versions of the Bible were compared: the Hebrew “Masoretic” (“masorah” - according to Hebrew “tradition”) text, the original of the Old Testament, was compared with the Greek Septuagint (“translation of seventy interpreters”) and with the Latin Vulgate; parts of the Bible written in ancient Aramaic (some chapters of the Book of Daniel) were carefully studied.

The New Testament was transcribed from the exemplary Greek text for that time, prepared shortly before by the great humanist philologist Erasmus of Rotterdam, and Luther also used the Latin translation of Erasmus himself. Interestingly, both texts of the New Testament were prepared by Erasmus in 1516 and 1519, respectively: their appearance, therefore, coincided with the very beginning of the Reformation.

But Luther was not only concerned with fidelity to the original Bible. He was also extremely worried about the sound of the translation, its general accessibility, accuracy, and the beauty of the language.

Luther himself was the greatest connoisseur of German speech, all its dialects and adverbs, well-aimed words and expressions. In the early thirties, he compiled, for the first time in history, Germanic philology, a collection of German proverbs and sayings, which includes about two thousand sayings.

Around the same time, he also translated into German part of the famous fables of Aesop, looking for a German expression corresponding to it in accuracy for each Greek expression.

Undoubtedly, all these labors of Luther sharpened his feeling mother tongue and helped to more accurately convey the Word of God. In addition, the translator constantly sought to communicate among the common people - on the streets, fairs, squares, where he carefully listened to the people's speech.

He carefully selected german words unconditionally corresponding to the Biblical original. For this purpose, for example, he once asked a Jewish rabbi to go with him to the butcher's. The butcher who butchered the lamb carcass, at the request of Luther, said how the people called each internal organ and each part of the carcass, and the rabbi explained how their names sound in the Hebrew Bible. This knowledge was necessary for Luther when translating those chapters that describe animal sacrifices in detail (Lev. ch. 1-9).

It was difficult for Luther and his collaborators to translate almost every verse, and the great work was slowly advancing. Luther himself writes in his preface to the Book of Job that he once, together with Melanchthon and Aurogallus, "managed to barely master three verses in four days."

The translator, whose childhood was spent in a poor peasant family, found a fresh and accurate folk comparison for his work: he compares translation with cutting down forests and uprooting stumps.

“The reader cannot even imagine how many stumps and logs were in the place where he now freely passes, as if on planed boards, and how we, covered in sweat and fear, removed all these stumps and logs from his path ...”

Note that Luther speaks here not only of toil, but also of fear. After all, it is terrible for a believer to make a mistake at least in something when transmitting the Word of God, his responsibility before God and people is great! According to Luther's memoirs, he, along with his assistants, often spent three or four weeks looking for one word that was most suitable for a given verse of the Bible.

Luther not only did not insist on the uniqueness of the solutions he found in the translation, but constantly asked connoisseurs (and even ordinary readers) to object to him, to offer other options. Before last days of his life, the great translator improved, perfected his work. He constantly convened special "Checking Commissions for the Translation of the Holy Scriptures", of which the most representative operated in Wittenberg in 1540-1541. Literally every word of the translation was meticulously examined, and much was specified.

While the Roman hierarchies covered themselves with arguments about the “complexity” of the Bible, its “incomprehensibility” for the common man, Martin Luther wrote: “There is no clearer book written on earth than this ... A simple miller’s daughter, if she is a believer, can correctly understand and explain it.
Luther uttered these words back in 1520, at the beginning of his open confrontation with the papacy. And to the end of his days, the reformer did everything in his power to make the Bible available to the common people. He initiated the teaching of literacy and Scripture to German children of all classes.

And his desire to "accustom all the people to the Gospel Truth" brought wonderful results. Luther's translation of the Bible, which went out of print in 1534, became the reference book of the entire German people.

For 50 years - until 1584 - about 100,000 copies of this Bible were published - a huge circulation, for those times! ..

The first edition of Luther's Bible was printed by Hans Lufft and provided with big amount comments. Appearance The book was unusually attractive: the illustrations for it were created by the great German artist Lucas Cranach the Elder.

Protestant Churches, as you know, called their followers to the direct fulfillment of the second commandment of the Lord: “Do not make yourself an idol and no image of what is in heaven above, and what is on the earth below, and what is in the water below the earth. Do not worship them and do not serve them ... ”(Ex. 20, 4-5).

The second commandment, however, does not forbid the creation of any images, but forbids just worshiping them. For example, images of the Cherubim, who were by no means given divine honors, were created by the command of the Lord already in the time of Moses and placed in the Tabernacle (Ex. 25, 18-22). Therefore, the strict observance of the second commandment freed creative forces Protestant artists from slavery to the canon, and this contributed to the flourishing of the fine arts.

Luther expressed his attitude towards art in the following words: “I am not of the opinion of those who think that the Gospel will strike and destroy all the arts, as some saints believe, but I would very much like to see all the arts, and especially music, in the service of The one who created them and gave them to us. Therefore, let every pious Christian act in this direction as he pleases, to the best of the powers bestowed on him by God.

And today, more than 450 years later, the majority of the German-speaking population of the world reads the Bible in Martin Luther's translation.

Luther inspired other Protestant translators by his example. For example, in 1611, England received its Protestant translation of the Bible by 50 theologians (the "King James Bible"). It is to this day, in its own way, unsurpassed and read by the majority of English-speaking believers throughout the world.

Luther's translation - "the father of all Protestant translations" - will forever remain a living monument not only to the first European reformer, but also to the Reformation itself - the great spiritual movement for a return to the Gospel Truth.