A Project: The English Luther Bible

I've been working on a project for a while... It's called "Biblia, that is, the entire Holy Scripture. English. Christopher Neuendorf. Frankentrost." (By the way, Frankentrost, MI is where I am right now, serving as Vicar of Immanuel Lutheran Church, supervising pastor Rev. Mark Loest.) It will be a translation of the Bible from the Greek and Hebrew, but compared with Luther's German version. That means that translational choices will be decided based on Luther's version. For example, did Eve say, "I have acquired a man with the help of the LORD," or "I have acquired a man, the LORD"? In my English Luther Bible she will say the latter, since Eve viewed Cain (wrongly, of course) as the fulfillment of the promise in Genesis 3:15 that the woman would give birth to the Seed, viz. the Christ, who would crush the serpent's head.

It also means that specific terms will be somewhat different than they've been in previous English versions. There will be no "gentiles," only heathens (Luther translated "ethnoi" by its German cognate "Heiden," English "heathen," which gets across the idea that "the nations" are pagan--they exist outside of God's blessing until such time as the Christ should come). There will be no "uncircumcision," only the Foreskin (St. Paul's actual term for the mass of uncircumcised heathen). There is very little "justifying," but there is a lot of making/becoming righteous.

It also means that the choice of base original texts will be different, at least for the New Testament. I am using the Byzantine text-type (which I believe to be authentic, unlike the Alexandrian, which is what is typically used in Protestant seminaries, including Lutheran), and where Luther's base text (Erasmus's Greek New Testament) adds something, I will indicate that in my own footnotes.

It also means that there will be no verse divisions (these may be indicated in the margins) and therefore no artificial breaks in the text. There were no verse divisions until after Luther's death. There will be marginal glosses, translated from Luther's own, often helpful, sometimes quaint, always entertaining. My own notes will be presented in the form of footnotes and will alert the reader when Luther's translation differs from what I consider to be sound modern scholarly opinion, or when Luther takes extreme liberties with translation (which he often does, and which I will follow as closely as possible in my translation--hence the need for footnotes).

It also means that the books of the Bible will be presented in the order in which they are found in Luther's Bible, with the Apocrypha between the Old and New Testaments, and Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelation relegated to the back, since they are not (in Luther's judgment) apostolic (Hebrews denies the possibility of repentance following post-baptismal apostasy, James contradicts the clear words of St. Paul and fails to center his letter on Christ, Jude quotes from apocryphal texts, and Revelation is too obscure to be Holy Scripture. And they are all antilegomena, so we are free to discuss whether or not they are apostolic). There will be introductions to the Old and New Testaments, translated from Luther, and prefaces to those books and groups of books for which Luther provided prefaces.

All I have so far is Galatians, two chapters of Romans with two thirds of its preface, a few chapters of Genesis (not consecutive), and a Psalm. It's slow going, but I haven't had the opportunity to be imprisoned in the Wartburg for months on end.

This will not be the Lutheran Study Bible (coming soon from CPH!). It will be the English Luther Bible.

What do you think?