The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology - Saint Mary ...

its surface, but the massive substance will abide, the stone itself can never
be displaced.
Sources of defects in Luther’s version.
Up to this hour, Luther's version of the New Testament has been the
object of minute examination by friend and foe. Protestant scholarship has
subjected it to a far severer test than the enmity of Rome could bring to
bear upon it. That particular mistakes and defects exist in it, its warmest
admirers will admit, but the evidence of its substantial accuracy and of its
matchless general beauty is only strengthened by time. The facts which
bear upon its defects may be summed 91 up in the statements which follow:
I. The influence of the Vulgate was necessarily very powerful on
Luther. It was felt when he thought not of it, felt when he was consciously
attempting to depart from it where it was wrong. Imagine an English
translator preparing now a version of the New Testament--and think how
the old version would mould it, not only unconsciously, but in the very
face of his effort to shake off its influence.
II. Luther's Greek text was in many respects different from that now
received, as the received is different from the texts preferred by the great
textual critics of our century.
III. Luther's words, as they were used and understood in his day,
were an accurate rendering of the original, at many places, where change
of usage now fixes on them a different sense. He was right, but time has
altered the language. Luther, for example, used "als," where "wie" (as)
would now be employed; "mögen" for "vermögen," (to be able;) "etwa"
for "irgend einmal," (sometime;) "schier" in the sense of "bald," (soon). 92
IV. Many of the points of objection turn on pure trivialities.
V. Many of the passages criticized are intrinsically difficult. Scholars
in these cases are not always agreed that Luther was wrong, or yet more
frequently when they agree so far, they are not agreed as to what is to be
substituted for his rendering.
91 Hopf, Würdigung, p. 214.
92 On the antiquated words in Luther's Bible, see Pischon, Erklärung., Berl., 1844; and Beck, Wörterbuch z. L.'s
Bibelübers., Siegen. u. Wiesbaden, 1846; Hopf, 230-241.