RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Bible Versions
sian origin of the version; the manuscript of Tepl may have been in Waldensian hands, but this does not prove a Waldensian origin. There are certain peculiar readings in which the version agrees with the Provencal translation.
A different translation containing only the Old Testament is represented by the " Wenzel " Bible at Vienna, translated from the Latin at the command of the emperor Wenceslaus by Martin Rotlev later than 1389 (facsimile in Vogt and Koch, ut sup.). A " Bible for the Poor " at Maihingen of 1437 gives a German working over of the 212 hexameters in which Alexander Villadeus summarized all the chapters of the Bible (e.g. Gen. i-vii: sex, prohibet, peccant, Abel, Enoch, archa fit, intrant) and counts seventy-six books, fifty-eight prologues, 1,457 chapters, and 1,606 verses in the Psalter. To the same group belongs a manuscript now at Maihingen (1472), beautifully illustrated by Furtmeyer for Albert IV of Bavaria, which has between Deuteronomy and Job Matt, i-v, 44, like a manuscript in the British Museum written by the same copyist in 1465 (cf. the Athenceum for May 31, 1884, and R. Priebsch, Deutsche Handschriften in England, i, Erlangen, 1896). For other versions, cf. Walther.
The Low German Bibles include the Old Testament of Delft (1477), without Psalms, and the famous Picture Bible of Cologne (about 1478; cf. R. Kautzsch, Die Holzschnitte der K diner Bibel von H~9, in Studien zur deutschen Kunstgeschichte, vii, 1896, and G. Gerlach, in Dziatzko's Arbeiten, ii, 13, Leipsic, 1896). The Song of Solomon in this Bible is not translated but is given in Latin. The Bible of Liibeck of 1494 gives, up to II Kings vii, an original translation; from that chapter onward text and pictures of the Cologne Bible. The edition of Ludwig Trutebul (Halberstadt, 1522) is very scarce. On the Psalters cf. Walther, 682-703, and Kurrelmeyer, ut sup.
On the " Wenzel " Bible, cf. AJP, xxi, 62-75, and F. Jelinek, Die Sprache der Wenzelbibel, Gorz, 1898-99. On the pre-Lutheran Bibles, cf. A. E. Schonbach, Miscellen aus Grazer Handschriften, ii. Reihe, Deutsche Uebersetzungen biblischer Schriften, Graz, 1899; idem, Ueber ein mitteldeutsches Evangelienwerk aus St. Paul, Vienna, 1897, and L. J. M. Bebb, in DB, extra vol., 411-413.
Contemporaneously with Luther others were engaged in translating parts of the Bible into modern German, e.g., Boschenstein, Lange, Krumpach, Amman, Nachtgal, Capito, and Frohlich; but their works are forgotten (see also below, § 5). Not contemplating at first the entire Bible, Luther , , began with the penitential Psalms
" Bible?rS (Mar-> 1517> improved 1525) and followed with the Lord's Prayer and Ps. ex in 1518, the Prayer of Manasses with Matt, xvi, 13-20, in 1519, and other pieces. At the end of 1521 he began with the New Testament. He writes on Dec. 18, 1521: "Meanwhile I am gathering notes, being on the point of translating the New Testament into the vernacular; " two days later: " Now I am laboring on annotating and translating the Bible into the common speech; " on Jan. 13, 1522, to Amsdorff : " Meanwhile I am translating the Bible, though I have undertaken a task beyond my strength. The Old Testament I can not touch unless you lend your aid " (cf. G. Bos- II.— 10
sert, in TSK, 1897, pp. 324, 349, 366). The New Testament was in type Sept., 1522; it was published with woodcuts at Wittenberg without name of printer or of translator (Das Ncwe Testament Deutzsch) and was sold for one and one-half florins. In December a second edition followed (cf. R. Kuhrs, Verhdltnis der Decemberbibel zur Septemberbibel. Kritischer Beitrag zur Geschichte der Bibelsprache M. Luthers. Mit einem Anhang iiber Joh. Lange' s Matthausubersetzung, Greifswald, 1901). Of the Old Testament, part i (the five books of Moses) was ready in 1523; parts ii and iii (the historical and poetical books) in 1524; the prophets did not follow until 1532; and the Apocrypha as a whole not until the first complete Bible in 1534. Eleven editions were published during Luther's lifetime, besides numerous reprints. For the Old Testament he used the edition of Brescia, 1494 (the copy is now at Berlin); for the New Testament, the second edition of Erasmus (1519), but he consulted the Vulgate, and for the Old Testament had the assistance of his friends Melanchthon, Bugenhagen, Aurogallus, and all available helps. In the preface to Sirach he mentions the earlier German translation, but he seems on the whole independent of it. The influence of Luther's work was great even outside of Germany. It formed the basis of the Danish translation of 1524, of the Swedish and Dutch of 1526, of the Icelandic of 1540, and, through the mediation of Tyndale, influenced the English Authorized Version of 1611.
Large parts of Luther's autograph printer's copy are preserved, and the first part is in print in D. Martin Luther's Deutsche Bibel, Weimar, 1906. A catalogue of the original editions of Luther's Bible was published by H. E. Bindseil (Verzeichniss der Original-Ausgaben, etc., Halle, 1840), who also, in collaboration with H. A. Niemeyer, issued a critical reprint of the edition of 1545 with a collation of the earlier impressions (7 vols., Halle, 1845-55). J. G. Hagemann, Nachricht von denen furnehmsten Uebersetzungen der heiligen Schrijt (Brunswick, 1750), gives a list of editions to 1749. <t. ih» Hauck-Herzog RE, iii, 74-75, about ninety places are named in which Luther's Bible has been printed, with the date of the first edition in each place. It includes the following towns in America: Germantown, Penn., 1743 (the first Bible in a European language printed in America; see Sower, Christopher) and 1763 (cf. Busier Bibelbote, 1899, 52); New York, 1854 (N. T.) and 1857 (complete Bible); Philadelphia, 1846. Reading, Penn., 1813, and Lancaster, Penn., 1819, may be added. A chronological list would show the influence of Pietism. The first Berlin edition (1699), for example, was due to Spener. The first Low German Bible, by J. Hoddersen, was printed by L. Dietz at Liibeck in 1533; the last was that of Luneburg, 1621.
By the middle of the nineteenth century six or seven different recensions of Luther's version were in use in Protestant Germany (cf. C. Monckeberg, Tabellarische Uebersicht der wichtigsten Varianten der bedeutendsten gangbaren Bibelausgaben, New Testament, Halle, 1865, 4. Revision QUI Testament, 4 vols., 1870-71). In of 1863 a committee was named by
Luther's the Eisenach Conference (see Eisen- Version. ^^ Conference) to undertake a final revision. As the result of the labors of this committee the revised New Testament appeared in 1867 and again in 1870, Genesis in 1873,
Bible Versions