# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_September 1862_S274
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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

from this honest admission, the whole second reason is just as worm-eaten as the first. "The appeal to the abolition of the Itala in the 4th century is only apparently to the point," says the Ev. Kirchen-Zeitung; "for, first, this Itala was by no means equal in inner worth to our German Bible; second, it had, as a whole, not yet long passed into the use of the western Christian world, and had by no means struck such deep roots among the people as our German one, especially since even the manner of multiplying books in those days stood in the way of its general dissemination; third, the author of the new translation, the Vulgate, St. Jerome, was in his time a man who offered the Church an incomparably greater guarantee and security than a de Wette, a von Meyer, or a Stier does nowadays; fourth, care was taken at that time that things did indeed remain with the new translation, and that the Church was not split and torn this way and that by ever new and repeated attempts of the same kind. These are differences enough. What therefore, around the year 400, took place with the Itala without considerable harm — indeed to the great advantage of the Church — would now, under such altered circumstances, be attended with fateful consequences." The Ev. Kirchen-Zeitung draws attention to some of these consequences; but there are still others to be taken into consideration. The questions: Have there not already been German Bible versions before the Reformation? Does not Luther himself wish that every city might have its own Bible translator? Why should the evangelical Church remain bound forever to the Lutheran translation? — are raised by the friends of revision from a quite peculiar motive. At first glance one does not at all understand what such questions have to do with the alleged "revision"; for they concern various independent translations and translators, not "revisers." Moreover, it is not clear what one actually wishes to hold up to evangelical Christendom with such questions. Are we perhaps meant to be told that, just as Luther had the right to put his own version in the place of those older ones, so too every newer rendering may rightly be preferred to the Lutheran one? Or does one perhaps mean that the Reformer's wish has been fulfilled, that every city now has its own Bible translator, and that only our narrow-mindedness prevents us from acknowledging this? Or has any evangelical voice ever asserted that Luther's translation has taken the place of the original biblical text (for only that would mean binding the Church to this translation)? As far as I am aware, the evangelical Church has at no time bound its members (the unlearned no less than the learned) to any particular version; on the contrary, she has expressly made recourse to the original text a duty for the learned, a right for the unlearned, and has in fact favored every undertaking by which the fulfillment of that duty is facilitated and secured, and the exercise of this right made possible, at least approximately. To further, as far as possible, the widest use of proven aids to the understanding of Scripture — of good older and newer versions, of recognized