September 30th, 2025
128. Acceptance of New Translations
This article is not a response to one specific question about the acceptance of the EHV and NIV 2011 but to many questions we have heard about this issue. It deals with the fact that even the most iconic translations received opposition when they appeared.
Every day Ecclesiastes’ axiom, “There is nothing new under the sun,” proves itself to be true in so many ways. This axiom is just as true concerning the reaction to new Bible translations as it is in any other area of life in the church. The appearance of new Bible translations is almost always a cause of concern and even controversy, regardless of the merits or demerits of the new version.
Jerome’s Vulgate which ruled in the Western church for more than a millennium was not fully accepted for more than two centuries. At first, the Jerome’s version was called the New Edition in contrast to the old edition which was called the Common Edition (vulgata). Jerome's version was considered too extreme a change, but it overcame strong opposition so that it eventually became the dominant version of the Bible, the versio vulgata or Vulgate, the common translation. Pope Gregory the Great accepted the Vulgate as equal with the Old Latin in the 6th century.
The King James Version which ruled in the English-speaking church for 400 years was not embraced with open arms. In their preface the translators refer to “all the calumniations and hard interpretations of other men” and to being maligned “by selfe-conceited brethren, who runne their owne wayes, and give liking unto nothing but what is framed by themselves, and hammered on their Anvile.” Apparently included among these calumniations was the review by Hugh Broughton, the most highly regarded English Hebraist of his time (who had been excluded from the committee of translators because of his “uncongenial temperament”). In 1611 he issued a total condemnation of the new version, criticizing especially the translators' rejection of word-for-word equivalence and stated that “he would rather be torn in pieces by wild horses than that this abominable translation should ever be foisted upon the English people.” For most of the 17th century the assumption remained that, while it was important to provide the scriptures in the vernacular for simple folks, nevertheless serious biblical study was best undertaken within the international common medium of learning, Latin.
Much less well known is the controversy about which edition of Luther’s Bible was the genuine Luther Bible. After Luther’s death, the editions being printed at Wittenberg fell under suspicion because of distrust of Melanchthon. After all, he had falsified the Augsburg Confession. The “genuine Lutherans” at Jena felt a need to print an edition faithful to Luther’s intent. To do this, they sought to obtain copies of Rörer’s minutes and notes from the meetings of the translation revision committee chaired by Luther.
A letter from Johann Friedrich II to Wolf of Anhalt, written in 1562, asks for assistance in this matter: “We kindly make it known to your Excellency that we report that the late Dr. Martin Luther’s “Annotationes” (by which is understood the sainted M. Rörer’s inter Corrigendum Biblia) should be present in the Bible, but have not yet been entered correctly. Concerning these notes, when he was still alive, the aforementioned sainted Rörer sent such Annotations to M. Christiani, a pastor at Köthen, so that he should correct it, and then he would resume the work. Also without a doubt he would have completed it a long time ago, because we have decided and desire to again have the Bible published and printed in our printing house at Jena in the future. For this reason we would like to have the important “Annotationes.”
A complete German Bible was, in fact, printed at Jena in the year 1564, which was the first Luther Bible printing in the Saxon lands outside of Wittenberg. The theological disputes between Jena and Wittenberg obviously played a part in the decision to produce this Jena Bible of 1564. Disputes concerning the Luther Bible arose very soon after Luther’s death. The editions of the Wittenberg Bible and New Testament from 1546 and the following years showed differences from the Bible of 1545 in both the text and in the notes, particularly in the New Testament. These changes were labeled as falsifications of the genuine Luther text, by those who opposed the Philippists. As a result of attacks by Flacius and his adherents, the University of Wittenberg fell into disrepute as the center and breeding ground of destructive heresies and un-Lutheran errors, and many people treated Wittenberg Bible editions with distrust if they carried a date later than 1545.
So it was felt that a Bible should be produced at Jena that was purged of all of the heretical and suspicious alterations of the Wittenberg text. To do that the publishers at Jena intended to get assistance from the minutes of Luther’s revision committee (perhaps also from Luther’s handwritten notes), in order to extract from them Luther’s pure intentions, and to obtain through these documents a standard for the eradication of the supposed errors.
As shown above, Pastor Christiani had at his disposal in Köthen the minutes from the Bible revision which were bound in the sermon volume of 1541-1542 as well as in a now lost Book B. Johann Friedrich intended to somehow employ and make use of these “Annotationes” for the Bible which he planned to produce, the Jena Bible of 1564. This plan does not seem to have succeeded, in part because Book B was apparently never found.
Careful comparison shows that the Jena Bible of 1564, far from being a new corrected edition, is largely a reproduction of the Wittenberg Bible from around 1556. It contains all the changes of the Bible of 1546 and the later years. Someone in Wittenberg uncovered this evidence already in 1564 and put out a document entitled: “On the Bible and preface printed at Jena.” In this document it states with evident Schadenfreude: “Because now all these things that were reported [namely, the charges about the changes in the Wittenberg Bible after the 1541 edition] are also included in the Bible that is now printed at Jena, it cannot have been produced according to the above-named copy or Bible, in which Luther himself wrote. For it does not contain all these things (namely, the things from Luther’s own hand). So it must follow, then, that this Bible that was printed at Jena followed the Bibles which were printed at Wittenberg. Therefore, this Bible printed at Jena is no clearer or richer than a Bible that someone would now print at Wittenberg.”
Information about this dispute and about the literary sources that lie behind it are found in Volumes 3 and 4 of the section of the Weimar Ausgabe of Luther’s works concerning the German Bible. Though the elusive Book B was never found, extensive minutes from the translation committee chaired by Luther as well as reproductions of Luther’s handwritten notes on translation are presented in these volumes.