# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_December 1864_S355
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Proposal and Specimen for the Preparation of a Bible Commentary, etc. 355

I then resolved to take the work in hand myself, and began the preliminary labors already 23 years ago, which I completed within a few years, as I have given notice of in the first number of the "Lutherophilus," in the fourth letter — of which I wish here briefly to summarize what belongs to this subject, and indeed with the intention of encouraging others to similar preliminary labors, or also of offering them my own for their use.

In doing so I would even now unreservedly give preference to the Walch edition over the Erlangen one, especially because the former contains the German translation of all the Latin writings, which is lacking in the latter. How difficult it is, however, to supply such a translation in genuine Lutheran church German, everyone will convince himself if he only translates a few pages, for example from the commentary on Genesis, and then makes a comparison with the old excellent translation by B. Faber and J. Guden.

My preliminary labors consist of a register on the exposition of the Bible in general, in which I recorded all of Dr. Luther's remarks belonging to the introduction of the biblical books, and of a register of all the Bible passages occurring in Dr. Luther's writings. In the former I made note throughout; in the latter, only for the passages he actually expounded, of the year of composition of the writing in question, as well as its class with regard to its varying authority (see Lutheroph. I, p. 19). The number of Bible passages contained in this register amounts, including the supplements from the writings published later as well as from the symbolical books, to approximately 55,000.

That it is by no means unnecessary, even with regard to the books Dr. Luther himself expounded, to also collect the explanations occurring elsewhere, is proven in particular by the passage in his Dialectic (W. A. 14, 1327-1333), where he expounds Noah's prophecy concerning Christ, Genesis 9:26-27, at much greater length than in his commentary on Genesis.

I have often wished that in compiling the register I had paid still more attention to the explanations of individual biblical words and expressions, as the above-mentioned Förtsch has assembled them with much diligence and skill in his Concordance, for which I have gathered a great quantity of supplements.

Those two registers have rendered me excellent service, especially in preparing the sermons on the evangelical pericopes, as well as the Bible-expounding sermons on the five Books of Moses and on the greater part of the New Testament books; further, in drafting confessional addresses on hundreds of passages from the Psalms and the prophet Isaiah; and finally in the exposition of many hundred Bible passages, concerning which I had to give information monthly, in response to written inquiries, during a so-called consultation hour. Appendix A contains a specimen of this twofold register. I have also made an attempt, with its help, to compile a commentary on Paul's epistles to the Ephesians, Philippians