# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_September 1862_S277
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Lic. Ströbel on the Revision of Luther's Bible. 277

a new rendering, — it will regard it as a new Bible; along with Luther's word, it will at the same time hold God's Word to be lost." "The authority of our Bible translation truly rests entirely on the great name of Luther, whom every evangelical Christian, whether young or old, educated or uneducated, knows and reveres; it has grown wholly together with him. Because the name of Luther stands before our Bibles, the people trust them and rely upon them in life and death. It regards his rendering as a sufficient substitute for the original texts, which are inaccessible to it. Suppose we had at present a theologian who, along with thorough scholarship and all other requirements, at the same time enjoyed as general an authority among the Christian people of German tongue as St. Jerome did in his day — then one might perhaps say: here is the man who can give us a new Bible. But where is this man, or where has he been these three hundred years, who could outweigh Luther's authority? St. Jerome was presumably known to every Latin-speaking Christian of his time, and no doubt could prevail concerning his ecclesiastical character. Are, then, our newer Bible translators, or the improvers of the Lutheran Bible, also men of undisputed churchmanship? Or are they so generally known and acknowledged among our evangelical people that it would, without hesitation, accept — that it might rightly accept — God's Word from their hand? And yet such a work, if any, would require full assurance. The scholar can convince himself without difficulty, by comparing the original texts, of the value or worthlessness of a new translation. But on what is the trust of the unlearned, of the laity, to rest, when that guarantee is lacking to them? Who dares to put his personal authority in the balance? And if someone did dare it, whom would it help? Would not an alarming insecurity have to set in among our people, if they now had to read differently in many places than they had read before? Would that not mean taking the ground and soil out from under their feet?" And where would the introduction of a new or altered Bible translation lead further? "Let us for once assume the improbable: that the unaltered Lutheran Bible could be displaced without resistance, that the congregations would let the age-old inherited treasure be quietly taken out of their hands, and would put up with whatever the ecclesiastical supreme authority saw fit to place in their hands instead. Can it then be expected that all the evangelical churches of German tongue, within and outside Germany, would agree on the altered edition of Holy Scripture? There is no doubt that we would soon have almost as many different Bibles as there are church governments. The domain of each would extend just as far as the arm of the latter reaches. And, worst of all, even within any given territorial church a particular edition would as a rule prevail only just so long as the temporary bearers of the church government. Every change in government would immediately endanger the unaltered continuance of the Bible, for