A Letter on Luther's Wartburg Bible from Dr. Eberhard Zwink Edited by Rev. Robert E. Smith at His Request 29 November 1995 Dear Mr. Smith, I don't think we can prevent the news of this extraordinary Bible with its thousands of handwritten remarks from spreading around the world. Therefore you may translate the text of our home page. But I beg you to respect the reticence of our words, since no one will be able to verify the authenticity absolutely -- at least at this time. There will be always be doubts, by both those who believe in it and those who do not. The latter are now calling it all nonsense. You may also use the following text after correcting my grammatical mistakes! Because you moderate a discussion group called Wittenberg (and I admire you for doing so), I think that you are probably acquainted with the facts a little bit. It is often said that Luther translated the New Testament from the original Greek text as edited by Erasmus of Rotterdam (1516, 2.ed. 1519). This is true, but it is not the whole story. We know from learned studies, including the edition of the _Deutsche Bibel_ of the _Weimarer Ausgabe_, that the process of translation was more complicated than that and that Luther also used his well known text of the Vulgate. Our copy is a Latin Vulgate, printed in Lyon, 1519 in octavo. My colleague, Dr. Manuel Santos Noya, is in the process of cataloging the Latin Bibles of our collection (it is one of the largest and perhaps the most important collection of printed Bibles in the World). While he was counting the Bible's unnumbered leaves, he saw an autobiographical remark, handwritten by Luther on an empty half page after an index, which was hidden because it is not on the title page. It says: "D. M. L. Anno 1483 natus ego," or, in English, "Doctor Martin Luther, in the year 1483 I am born." Our copy has thousands of ma A Letter on Luther's Wartburg Bible from Dr. Eberhard Zwink Edited by Rev. Robert E. Smith at His Request 29 November 1995 Dear Mr. Smith, I don't think we can prevent the news of this extraordinary Bible with its thousands of handwritten remarks from spreading around the world. Therefore you may translate the text of our home page. But I beg you to respect the reticence of our words, since no one will be able to verify the authenticity absolutely -- at least at this time. There will be always be doubts, by both those who believe in it and those who do not. The latter are now calling it all nonsense. You may also use the following text after correcting my grammatical mistakes! Because you moderate a discussion group called Wittenberg (and I admire you for doing so), I think that you are probably acquainted with the facts a little bit. It is often said that Luther translated the New Testament from the original Greek text as edited by Erasmus of Rotterdam (1516, 2.ed. 1519). This is true, but it is not the whole story. We know from learned studies, including the edition of the _Deutsche Bibel_ of the _Weimarer Ausgabe_, that the process of translation was more complicated than that and that Luther also used his well known text of the Vulgate. Our copy is a Latin Vulgate, printed in Lyon, 1519 in octavo. My colleague, Dr. Manuel Santos Noya, is in the process of cataloging the Latin Bibles of our collection (it is one of the largest and perhaps the most important collection of printed Bibles in the World). While he was counting the Bible's unnumbered leaves, he saw an autobiographical remark, handwritten by Luther on an empty half page after an index, which was hidden because it is not on the title page. It says: "D. M. L. Anno 1483 natus ego," or, in English, "Doctor Martin Luther, in the year 1483 I am born." Our copy has thousands of marginalia which make sense only if they are understood as preparatory notes for the translation of the Bible into German (often these are only a few German words written in this Latin text!). They match exactly the rendering of the so called _Septembertestment_, the first edition of the NT translated by Luther in the Wartburg from Dec. 1521 to Jan 1522, printed in September 1522 and revised by Melanchthon in summer 1522. The notes in the Pentateuch and in Psalms 21-37 are similar. The last fact is very interesting. Luther compiled a very dense exegesis of Psalm 1-20, called _Operationes in Psalmos_! After publishing this, he would have to work with the psalms which follow, i. e. 21 ff.! The Pentateuch was the next part of the Bible to be translated and to be printed. It appeared in 1523. All these facts support the theory that this Bible was a tool prepared with variants of the texts in Greek, Hebrew and Latin known at the time. These include the Masoretic Text, the translation of the Psalms from the Hebrew by Felix Pratensis, the Septuagint, the parallel recensions of the Greek Old Tetsament (Aquila, Symmachos, Theodotion), often the Greek of Erasmus, the Latin of the Vulgate and the Latin New Testament translated by Erasmus. But Luther himself sometimes corrected the text with variant which were, in his own opinion, better. Sometimes he even corrected on the basis of his own theology (e. g. Rom 3,28). Conclusion: The notes in this Bible are exactly like a mirror showing the foundation of Luther's translation work. It shows a well prepared text from which a _fast_ translation followed. Another fact: Luther did not use this book only to translate. He wrote shorter marginal notes in his Bible. Those glosses can be found in our copy, but in Latin, because he thought and wrote in Latin! But sometimes they are German; and sometimes they are not to be found in the German printed NT (1522). This is a very good argument against the thesis that an eager student or theologue analyzed Luther's translation and remarked the original sources in his own Bible copying Luther's Scripture! What could be the source of these unprinted marginalia? Yet the problem of authenticity is not solved yet:. Sometimes the handwriting is clear and exactly matches Luther's hand. At other times, there are doubts that Luther could have written a note. We must distinguish between his (and other's) German and Latin handwriting! There are strata of marginalia of different hands and different inks (dark, clear- brown, red). It will be necessary to search for the physical ingredients of the inks used and compare them with other known autographs of Luther during the time 1521/1522. In the meantime the critique against the pure authenticity is increasing. Therefore, we plan to hold a symposium for experts so that we may to show them the book itself and to discuss the various problems. Eberhard Zwink Head of the Bible Collection Wuerttemberg State Library Stuttgart ________________________________________________________________ This text by Dr. Eberhard Zwink was edited for Project Wittenberg by Rev. Robert Smith. You have the author's permission to freely distribute, copy or print this text. Please direct any comments or suggestions to: Rev. Robert E. Smith of the Walther Library at Concordia Theological Seminary. E-mail: bob_smith@ctsfw.edu Surface Mail: 6600 N. Clinton St., Ft. Wayne, IN 46825 USA Phone: (219) 452-2148 Fax: (219) 452-2126 ________________________________________________________________