# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juli 1864_S209
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Christian Catechism; A Guide to Religious Instruction. 209

Bible translated by Dr. Schaff be printed? And even supposing a large portion of parents would not agree to it, the author nevertheless demands it of all Christians, for it is not for nothing that "Christian Catechism" stands at the head. But let us reassure ourselves a little further. The close of the preface, which designates the catechism as a contribution to the three-hundredth-anniversary jubilee of the Heidelberg Catechism then being celebrated (in January 1863), and which at the same time pays this symbol of the Reformed Church a mighty tribute, comforts us with the thought that the catechism above, despite its Christian frontispiece, is actually Reformed at heart, and therefore not binding on all Christians.

As for learning, the present writer would not presume to measure himself against the famous Doctor of Mercersburg, nor to dispute with him over his improved Bible translation, but he cannot refrain from letting a few examples of such improvement follow, and leaving the judgment of them to more learned men. —

At Romans 2:14-15 the new translation reads: "For if the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, so they, although they have not the law, are a law unto themselves, in that they show the work of the law written in their hearts, since their conscience bears them witness, and their thoughts accuse or excuse one another among themselves." Everyone senses that the words "and yet" (compare Luther's Bible) belong there, in keeping with the German idiom. Just as little ground is there for the words "so they are," since Luther has certainly translated quite correctly: οὗτοι, "these same." But that the translator, at the end of verse 16, says "and excuse" is entirely wrong, for it reads ἢ καί ["or also"]; indeed the English Bible, too, has: or else. In the passage Hebrews 1:1 it is translated: "hath in these last days spoken unto us in his Son." Apart now from the fact that the word "his" does not stand in the Greek, even the "exact" English translation has by for ἐν ["in"]. At Romans 8:15 the author translates, on page 33, "a servile spirit" and "a childlike spirit"; but on page 106 it reads: "spirit of servitude, spirit of childship." What confusion and misunderstanding must arise from two readings of one book — above all of a catechism — when one pupil learns this form by heart and another that one, is easy enough to see. At Psalm 115:1 it reads: "Not unto us, O LORD, etc. — for thy mercy, and for thy truth's sake." That Luther translated "truth" just as correctly, so that an improvement here was at least superfluous, compare the passages Genesis 48:16 and Isaiah 42:3. "God is love" Dr. Schaff translates at 1 John 4:8 certainly quite literally, but feels that this is not really adequate after all, and therefore adds in parentheses "love itself in the highest and most perfect sense"; for in the German language, evidently, greater emphasis lies in the use of the article than without it. Without any need, the author writes at 1 Corinthians 8:6, "of whom are all things, and we unto him," for that the particle εἰς with the accusative is also used to indicate rest, compare