Why Luther Translated the Bible : Debate with McCabe on Quora

Q

Why did Martin Luther translate the Bible?
https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Martin-Luther-translate-the-Bible

Richard McCabe

Professor (physiology, biology, pathophysiology) (1994-present)

Answered 21h ago

Martin Luther made the first German translation of the Bible so that it would be available for German speaking people to read. Prior to that time the Bible was in Hebrew/Greek (Original), Latin (Vulgate) or English (Tyndale’s and earlier versions but not the KJV, which came later) However, not all of these were available to the common German, even if they spoke other languages. Contrary to what other responses say, the Catholics prohibited translating the Bible in any language other than Latin or the Original. William Tyndale was burned at the stake by the Catholics in 1536 for translating the Bible into English.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

16m ago

As I found in Konvertitenkatechismus by Jesuits of Paderborn, printed 1950, this was not so.

They said there were already 14 translations available in High German and 4 in Low German.

And this is confirmed by what Luther himself wrote in his Sendbrief vom Dolmetschen.

Which I have read (in a German literature anthology for secondary school).

He clearly referred to translations made by Papists, that is Catholics.

“Martin Luther made the first German translation of the Bible”

You should not believe everything they told you at Bible school. Specifically about the theology of grace and sacraments but also - this is where your answer proves it in a way you can easily check - about Church History.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

13m ago

“Contrary to what other responses say, the Catholics prohibited translating the Bible in any language other than Latin or the Original.”

There were local prohibitions at the time of the fight against Albigensians. These were not valid for 16th C. Germany.

The latest such prohibition, the only one valid in 16th C. was the English one against Lollards - which was very different from continental Inquisition (St. Joan of Arc was tried by English system under English law enforcement).

”William Tyndale was burned at the stake by the Catholics in 1536 for translating the Bible into English.”

Could have been if he had been tried and burnt in Coventry, but this is not the case for Flanders.

The Tyndale society themselves don’t agree with you.

I know about Iacobus Latomus and the Romans 3 dispute from their site, an archived page.

Own answer

and part of the debate under it is doubles to my comments above, since I wanted these also under his answer.

Q

Why did Martin Luther translate the Bible?
https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Martin-Luther-translate-the-Bible/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-1

Hans-Georg Lundahl

none/ apprx Masters Latin & Greek, Lund University

Answered 23h ago

Read his Sendbrief vom Dolmetschen.

It was not because Catholic translations were lacking, but because he didn’t like them, and he didn’t change to change the wording for the Holy Writers according to his own personal understanding of them.

Richard McCabe

21h ago

Catholic laity were prohibited from having the Bible by the Catholic church in the Council of Toulouse/Toledo in 1229. William Tyndale was burned at the stake in 1536 by the Catholics for translating the Bible into English. Martin Luther was excommunicated but the Catholics could not get to him because he was protected by German Princes.

References:

Melvyn Bragg on William Tyndale: his genius matched that of Shakespeare
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/10096770/Melvyn-Bragg-on-William-Tyndale-his-genius-matched-that-of-Shakespeare.html

Council of Toulouse - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Toulouse

Martin Luther excommunicated
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/martin-luther-excommunicated

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Original Author

1h ago

“Catholic laity were prohibited from having the Bible by the Catholic church in the Council of Toulouse/Toledo in 1229.”

Correct probably (though it seems the Spanish confirmation was Tarragona, not Toledo)- at a time when vulgar languages were very ununified. Three centuries nearly before Luther.

Note that this was valid for a limited region, in/around the Pyrenees. It was not repeated by any general council for application everywhere in the Catholic Church.

“William Tyndale was burned at the stake in 1536 by the Catholics for translating the Bible into English.”

Incorrect. He fled England perhaps suspect for heresy for translating the Bible. B U T he was burned after debates with Flemish or Belgian Inquisitors including one with Jacques Latôme (Iacobus Latomus) about Romans 3.

Both supposed “works of the law” to mean any law of God, including simply the moral law to which Abraham was obliged even before Moses, and Latomus considered Abraham was given his first justification without a previous keeping of the law, but not without a deliberation to for the future believe in and obey God. Council of Trent later precised that St. Paul’s point was precisely that as the ceremonial law had not been given yet, Abraham was justified without circumcision or kashrut.

“Martin Luther was excommunicated”

Prior to undertaking the translation, for not retracting the 41 theses enumerated by Pope Leo X in the bull Exsurge Domine.

Melvyn Bragg is not a serious source about the fate of Tyndale, though he is a conaisseur of Tyndale’s English.

Citing your last link:

“In January 1521, Pope Leo X excommunicated Luther. Three months later, Luther was called to defend his beliefs before Holy Roman Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Worms, where he was famously defiant. For his refusal to recant his writings, the emperor declared him an outlaw and a heretic.”

These writings did not yet at that date incude his Bible translation, as you can see here:

“The Luther Bible (German: Lutherbibel) is a German language Bible translation from Hebrew and ancient Greek by Martin Luther. The New Testament was first published in 1522 and the complete Bible, containing the Old and New Testaments with Apocrypha, in 1534. “

Luther Bible - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luther_Bible

Therefore, he was excommunicated for other things than Bible translations.

Richard McCabe

46m ago

The Catholics did not allow Laity to have Bibles at the time the other translations appeared. Contrary to what you said at first.

The Catholics burned Tyndale at the stake.

Luther was defended by the Princes of Germany (same like, read it all), The published year means when it was printed, not when it was translated.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Original Author

25m ago

“The Catholics did not allow Laity to have Bibles at the time the other translations appeared.”

We did not allow laity to have them without permission, that is a somewhat different statement.

16th C. Germany was not 13th C. Toulouse or Tarragona.

“The Catholics burned Tyndale at the stake.”

For his understanding of Romans 3, not for his translation of the Bible.

“Luther was defended by the Princes of Germany (same like, read it all),”

Yes, after Pope and Emperor had declared him a heretic.

And it was during this precise time when he could not appear in public that he was translating the Bible.

I’m a former Lutheran and I know his biography pretty well.

“The published year means when it was printed, not when it was translated.”

The excommunication was for things he had already published before the excommunication, not for a Bible he had not yet published.

Richard McCabe

17m ago

I’m a former Catholic and attended Catholic school, catechism and even a Catholic seminary, so I know the Catholics pretty well. In fact, when I once questioned why the Bible said something different from what the catechism book said the nun told me not to read the Bible because you had to be a priest to understand it. That’s a large part of the reason I went to the Seminary, but I didn’t find any answers there either.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Original Author

10m ago

Was this after Vatican II?

What was the catechism book saying?

Was it a pre- or post-Council Catechism?

Either way, you can be an educated Catholic without knowing relevant parts of Church history correctly. And you did not learn it then.

In principle, the nun would have been right, if the catechism had been a fully Catholic one, as I suppose it was not (perhaps you are older than I think …) - however, with the proviso that her formulation was wrong. You need to interpret it with the Church to understand it, and priests are likelier to be able to do so than laymen, due to more study, but the layman is not of a nature incapable of doing so.

The situation as such shows that you were not barred from reading the Bible as a precisely layman.

Continued

when previous was 15h ago

Richard McCabe

14h ago

It didn’t matter. I later sought God and he answered me. Then he directed the paths of my life. I don’t really care about the Catholic church. It is spiritually wrong on a number of things, still. Their claim of apostolic authority, for example. However, a lot of churches are wrong. What I don’t like about the Catholics is their false claim to be the ‘one true church’. The one true church is the one that Jesus, the Christ is head of. Like all human creeds, the Catholic creeds divide the church rather than unify it, as Jesus sought.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Original Author

Just now

“Their claim of apostolic authority, for example.”

But Christ gave his apostles authority lasting to Doomsday (Mt 28:18–20, adressed to the eleven, perhaps two more, like disciples from Emmaus).

Therefore, one Church has to have such.

“What I don’t like about the Catholics is their false claim to be the ‘one true church’. The one true church is the one that Jesus, the Christ is head of.”

Correct. It has a part in Heaven, a part in Purgatory and a part on Earth. That part is called the Catholic Church.

“Like all human creeds, the Catholic creeds divide the church rather than unify it, as Jesus sought.”

Except, there are maybe 40 bodies claiming today to be Roman Catholic, at a high maximum, and there are about 30 000 bodies of Protestants …

“It didn’t matter.”

Well, to me it does matter whether you detected a real contradiction between a sham Catholic catechism and the Bible or a sham contradiction between a real Catholic catechism and the Bible.

For instance, if it concerns a recent creation compared to millions or billions of years (moyboy) ago, all pre-Council catechisms are fairly explicitly Young Earth Creationist in their wording (even if some have been careful to construct some kind of leeway for squeezing in moyboy).

But the infamous “Catechism of the Catholic Church” by Ratzinger under Wojtyla (antipopes known as Cardinal Ratzinger later Benedict XVI and John Paul II) issued in the 90’s after I became a trad, fairly explicitly opens lots of doors to moyboy. Saying scientists know, saying the account in Genesis is symbolic and some more perhaps.