# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_September 1862_S268
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

268 Lic. Ströbel on the Revision of Luther's Bible.

they would; to them, not to those Semicredentibus and their irreligious demagogic following, the work should be entrusted — does not this offer guarantee enough against possible dangers? Quod non! By this captatio benevolentiae only the real state of the matter is obscured and put in a false light. In the alteration of the old hymn-books one might at least have credited the excellence and piety of their "improvers"; for hymn-book, liturgy, and the like belong only to the well-being, not to the being, of the Church. "But with the German Bible as it has stood, the ground would be taken away or made to totter beneath the feet of the Christian congregations," no matter whether by believing or unbelieving hands. Herein, however, lies the vexing misery, that even the friends of the revision project who are truly gifted with faith and learning do not consider what, at this our time, serves the peace of the Church. Were they, looking about them at the present, to ask themselves in earnest who it actually is that takes offense at the received Bible, they could scarcely find any other answer than that of the Ev. Kirchen-Zeitung. For it is and remains true: "The core of our people, in whom there still dwells love to God and His Word, indeed simply a sound, honorable disposition," will never let go of Luther's Bible; "the attempt to do away with it would find approval among unbelievers and the indifferent, and besides only among theological doctrinaires — well-meaning but impractical people." — Here, however, one immediately confronts us with the second objection, that the whole undertaking after all concerns only a "revision of the Lutheran translation." "To go further" (says the Canstein Bible Institute in the place cited), "to aim, say, at a reshaping of the Bible translation, even if on the basis of Luther's, as has repeatedly been attempted in more recent times, the undersigned Institute holds to be neither timely nor its task. Accordingly, even in the relatively few passages where Luther's undoubtedly incorrect translation seems to require a necessary change, this shall only be added in small print to the original Lutheran text, not put in its place." — Now indeed, this plan is so attractive that even my worthy H. S., in the Ev. Kirchen-Zeitung, though with an "But" in the margin, is on the whole willing to satisfy "the need for a correction of individual mistranslated passages" by having "the correct translation, following the example of the oldest Bible editions, appended in small type to the Lutheran text, only that the latter itself remain untouched." This expedient has always struck me as precarious and questionable. I am reminded, involuntarily, of Luther's well-considered word: "The young and simple folk must be taught with one and the same text, or else they will very easily go astray, and all trouble and labor will be lost." But apart from that, the whole plan of the Canstein Bible Institute rests on an amiable self-deception. It is supposed to be merely a "revision"! But what does "to revise" mean? we ask, in view of like-named