The first bestseller in world history
The ultimate, epic saga of love, war, death, destruction, hope, power and faith. Excerpts from Stephan Füssel`s introduction to 'The Luther Bible of 1534'
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Luther's "last hand edition" is the Biblia: das ist: Die gantze Heilige Schrifft: Deudsch Auffs New zugericht. D. Mart. Luth., printed in 1545 in Wittenberg by Hans Lufft. The last edition to be published in Luther's lifetime, it was ascribed almost canonical significance and-in contrast to Luther's own intentions-remained nearly unchanged throughout many centuries. Some of Luther's corrections were integrated into the edition of 1546. This was published posthumously, under the control of his close collaborator and corrector Georg Rörer (1492-1557). In all, 430 partial and complete editions were produced between 1522 and 1546 so that as many as some half a million Luther Bibles must have been printed by the mid-16th century.
Numerous legends are woven around the language of Luther's Bible, legends that, however, have been substantially modified by historians of linguistics in recent years. What remains is the fact that the popularity of his writings and his Bible translation, his efforts to avoid dialect as well as the use of the widely understood printer's language of south-eastern Germany, accelerated the formation of a standardised written German across the Empire. Luther's hope to be understood in the Saxon chancery language (Ideo est communissima linguae Germaniae) overestimated the role of these "official" dialects. In the Upper German cities, his translations had to be sold complete with Middle German/Upper German glossaries, and in northern Germany Low German versions sprang up very quickly. In addition to his conscientious struggle for balance, his coining of new words and idioms as well as his metaphorical speech made their mark on the new German language. Recent studies confirm that, in contrast to the hitherto common opinion that he wrote in a "popular, simple" style, he strove for a highlevel sacral language marked by classical rhetoric, based on the style of the original texts. Luther himself describes his accurate translation in the Sendbrieff von Dolmetschen: "It has happened that I have sometimes searched and inquired about a single word for three or four weeks. Sometimes I have not found it even then."
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Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Luther's "last hand edition" is the Biblia: das ist: Die gantze Heilige Schrifft: Deudsch Auffs New zugericht. D. Mart. Luth., printed in 1545 in Wittenberg by Hans Lufft. The last edition to be published in Luther's lifetime, it was ascribed almost canonical significance and-in contrast to Luther's own intentions-remained nearly unchanged throughout many centuries. Some of Luther's corrections were integrated into the edition of 1546. This was published posthumously, under the control of his close collaborator and corrector Georg Rörer (1492-1557). In all, 430 partial and complete editions were produced between 1522 and 1546 so that as many as some half a million Luther Bibles must have been printed by the mid-16th century.
Numerous legends are woven around the language of Luther's Bible, legends that, however, have been substantially modified by historians of linguistics in recent years. What remains is the fact that the popularity of his writings and his Bible translation, his efforts to avoid dialect as well as the use of the widely understood printer's language of south-eastern Germany, accelerated the formation of a standardised written German across the Empire. Luther's hope to be understood in the Saxon chancery language (Ideo est communissima linguae Germaniae) overestimated the role of these "official" dialects. In the Upper German cities, his translations had to be sold complete with Middle German/Upper German glossaries, and in northern Germany Low German versions sprang up very quickly. In addition to his conscientious struggle for balance, his coining of new words and idioms as well as his metaphorical speech made their mark on the new German language. Recent studies confirm that, in contrast to the hitherto common opinion that he wrote in a "popular, simple" style, he strove for a highlevel sacral language marked by classical rhetoric, based on the style of the original texts. Luther himself describes his accurate translation in the Sendbrieff von Dolmetschen: "It has happened that I have sometimes searched and inquired about a single word for three or four weeks. Sometimes I have not found it even then."
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