Chapter IX - Continental Versions from c. 1600 to the Present Day

Summary

German Versions

Protestant Versions

It is plain from the history of the Bible that every age has attempted to come to fresh terms with it, to form its own image of it. This is also true of Luther's version of the Bible, which has been the one most commonly printed and by far the most widely accepted in Germany during the period under review.

The linguistic superiority of Luther's Bible had moved Calvinists such as Tossanus and Pareus—especially in the Palatinate and Frankfurt am Main—to print the text and to add, instead of Luther's, prefaces and glosses of their own which had an entirely different spirit. Lutherans protested against this, particularly in Württemberg. But Johannes Piscator went even further, for he also dispensed with Luther's translation, and produced a most uneven one of his own in 1602–3. It was still being printed in Berne in the nineteenth century.

The Thirty Years War both hampered and helped the dissemination of the Bible. The losses were enormous, and the subsequent general poverty made it hard to replace them. The more handy and cheaper formats came into common use as well as the folios. Bible printing ceased entirely in Wittenberg, and the most important printing towns were now Lüneburg, Nürnberg and Frankfurt am Main. In the very middle of the war Sigismund Evenius promoted the production of one of the most important German bibles. The first printing of this ‘Weimar Bible’, with its many notes, accessories and pictures, was commissioned by Duke Ernst the Pious of Gotha in 1640 at Nürnberg. Though not cheap, it went through more than a dozen editions in 150 years.