The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1934-11-01
Page Ter
400th Bible Ami
versary Next Sunday
Continued From Page one)

OllV6Idn IGuCu Iuc
Swedish Bible, 1904; the Danish
Bible (used also by the Norwegians
for three centuries), 1850; the Fer
rara Spanish Bible, 1853; the Dutch
Bible Cbased upon Bugenhagen's
Low German of Luther's Bible),
1858; the italian Bible, 1862; the
Brest Polish Bible, 1868; the Ice
ladic Bible, 1884; and the newly
translated Dutch Bible arranged for
by the Syod of bort, which was
completed in 1882 and revised in
1634-35, but not printed till 1886 and
published till 1887.
That certainly is list of Bibles
or Bible versions such as no other
century in Christion history can
boast of. But it will be noticed that
we have listed only one translation,
the primary version, for each of the
countries referred to. except that
we have mentioned a second Dutch
Bible, because it may be said to
have rounded out the century and
was, of course, also a new and
much improved translation.
There were, of course, also other
interesting Bibles even before the
publication of Luther's Bible in its
completed form. But these simply
incorporated Luther's translation,
or were based upon it, as far as it
had appeared, and added the other
part or parts. Thus in the German
Language appeared the following:
The Zurich Bible of 1850, finally
published complete in 1880; the
Worms Bible, 1929; and the Strass-
burg Bible, 1880. To these might be
added two Bibles of the same year
as that of Luther's Bible, namely,
the Frankfort Bible of 1884 and
John Dietenberg's Roman Catholic
Bible of the same year, which also
were largely taken from Luther's
Babe. Indeed, an incomplete Dutch
Bible, also largely based upon the
already published parts of Luther's
Bible, appeared in print in Antwerp
as early as 1926. But all of these
are not regarded as being in the
same class as that of Luther, upon
which they were nevertheless large
ly based.
It is seen, of course, that all these
Bibles and Bible versions were the
by-product of the Reformation
movement that was sweeping over
Europe at that time. But long be-
fore these versions were made,
there had been TRANSACTIONS into the
language of the people in more than
one country of Europe. Thus there
had already appeared fourteen
printed Bibles in High German, the
first in 1866 and the fourteenth in
1913. But except for variations in
troduced by editors and printers,
they were simply so many editions
or reprints of one and the same YER
sion, supposedly made in Bohemia
or by the Waldensians nearly CEN
fury before the invention of print
ing in 1450-55. But that old Ger
man version had been made from
the so-called Old Latin version I'M
DERIVING it. There were also four
editions in Low German, not all of
them complete, the last one appear
ing in 1922, the year of the publica-
ton of Luthers first New Tesla
ment. All these Bibles were, how
ever, full of errors, and did not at
all meet the religious needs of the
common people of the time. More
over, they had but very little, if
any, influence upon Luther's trans
lation.
While space does not permit us
to speak of later issues and revis-
ions of the whole Bible during that
great century of Bibles of those
that followed the first or primary
versions and editions in each of the
different countries of the diff
erent versions and editions of the
New Testament and other parts of
the Bible, it will be Of interest
briefly to take look at England.
There the number of Bible versions,
of at least professedly new transla-
tions, was truly remarkable. In the
above list we mentioned only the
first published English translation
of the whole Bible, namely, that of
Miles Coverdale, 1885. After Cover
dale's Bible came the following:
Matthew's version (Tyndale's trans
lation as far as it had been made,
together with the rest from Cover
DALEY, 1887; Richard Taverner's ver-
sion, 1899; the so-called Great Bible,
1889 Gotten enormously called Gran
mer's Bible. which was the edition
of it, of 1910, with Cranmer's Pre-
face; the Geneva version, generally
called the Brooches Bible, 1850; the
Bishops Bible, 1868; the Roman
Catholic Douai version, completed
by 1882, of which the first edition
of the New Testament was printed
at Rheims in 1882 and that Of the
Old Testament at Douai in 1609-10;
and the King James Bible or the
Authorized Version, 1911.
Let us now take a background
look and briefly note the growth Of
Luther's Bible until it appeared in
its completed form. His complete
Bible of 1884 was the elimination
of dozen years of continuous work
and successive publications. He
had indeed already made trans
lation Of the seven penitential
psalms as early as 1917, and of 9th
er smaller parts of the Bible. But
it was not until his voluntary exile
in the Wartburg, after his epoch
making appearance before the Diet
of Worms april 17-18, 1921, that
he finally resolved to undertake the
work of translation on a large