Highlights of the Exhibition
The Elizabeth Perkins Prothro Bible Collection
at
Bridwell
Library
1996-2006
September 7-November 18, 2006
German Translation of the Old Testament
Das Allte Testament deutsch Translated by Martin Luther. Wittenberg: [Melchior Lotther the Younger for Lucas Cranach and Christian Döring], 1523-24.
Martin Luther chose the new edition of Desiderius Erasmus as his exemplar for his German translation. Luther did not produce the first translation of the Bible into German: multiple editions relying directly on the Vulgate had appeared in the fifteenth century. Luther, however, was a scholar of both Greek and Latin, and when he retired to Wartburg to produce his translation, he relied on both. There is little doubt that his translation had a powerful effect on the success of the Reformation, and Luther’s translation became the exemplar from which new translations into Dutch, Danish, Swedish, and English emerged. The printer Melchior Lotther published the first edition – the September Testament, in September 1522. Soon after Luther began work on his translation of the Old Testament. He relied not on Greek for this translation, but instead on Hebrew. The first printing of his translation of the Old Testament took place in 1523, and contains woodcut illustrations by Lucas Cranach and woodcut initials by Georg Lemberger. Shown here is a woodcut depicting the sacrifice of Isaac
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