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

fragments of translation were published during the earlier part of Luther's
sojourn in his Patmos, but not until his return from Wittenberg did he
begin the first grand portion of his translation of the Bible as a whole.
First draft.
Luther translated the New Testament in the first draft in about three
months. It sounds incredible, but the evidence places it beyond all doubt.
He was only ten months at the Wartburg; during this period he wrote
many other things; did a good deal of work on his Postils, and lost a great
deal of time, by sickness, and in other ways, and did not commence his
New Testament until his sojourn was more than half over. Never did one
of our race work with the ardor with which Luther wrought when his
whole soul was engaged, and never, probably, was that great soul so
engaged, so fired, so charmed with its occupation, as in this very work of
translating the New Testament. The absurd idea that Luther was assisted
in this first work by Melanchthon, Cruciger, Amsdorf, and others, has
arisen from confounding with this a different work at a different period. In
this, he was alone, far from the aid, far from the co-operating sympathy of a
single friend.
The Vulgate.
He did not translate from the Vulgate, though he used that ancient
and important translation with sound judgment. In his earlier efforts as a
translator we see -more of its influence than at a later period. This influence
was partly, no doubt, unconscious. His thorough familiarity with the
Vulgate would shape his translation to some extent, even when he was not
thinking of it. But the Vulgate was of right the most important aid, next to
the sacred text itself. Consequently, though Luther grew less and less
dependent upon it, and saw more and more its defects, he never ceased to
value it. He well knew, too, that many of the most serious faults of the
received form of the Vulgate were the results of the corrupted text, the state
of which before the critical labors which ran through the sixteenth century,
was almost chaotic. We will give a few illustrations of the fact that in
certain cases Luther followed the Vulgate, in his earliest translation,
without warrant from the Greek text. We will distribute our