Lübeck Bible Society
The Lübeck Bible Society , also known as the Lübeck Bible Society , was founded on September 17, 1814 in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Lübeck state . It still serves today as a Bible Society in the Lübeck Propstei in the Lübeck-Lauenburg parish of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Northern Germany, not printing its own Bibles, but above all distributing Bibles printed elsewhere as well as Bible educational campaigns. From 1980 to 2012 she was a member of the association “ North Elbian Bible Societies e. V. ". She is involved in the general assembly of the German Bible Society .
prehistory
The Lübeck Bible
The Lübeck Bible , printed by Steffen Arndes in Lübeck in 1494, is the best quality German (Low German) Bible before the Luther Bible was printed , both in terms of content and in terms of the illustrations.
This extensive work of 500 pages is an impeccable Low German translation of the Old and New Testaments from Latin . The biblical text is also explained almost imperceptibly by an excellent commentary, which makes the text accessible to the user in a practical manner and does not leave him alone with the often strange biblical texts. The most commented is therefore on the Song of Songs , which at the time was seldom translated into the vernacular because of its erotic component.
A second specialty of this book are the illustrations that turn the Bible into a picture Bible. The 92 scenic representations are tightly embedded in the two-column text and refer to the respective place in which they are located. The masters of these woodcuts based many of their illustrations directly on the Cologne Bible (around 1478), the first ever printed vernacular Bible.
August Hermann Francke was born in Lübeck
In today's Lübeck Logenhaus, St. Annen-Str. 2 , August Hermann Francke was born in 1663 as the son of a lawyer. This Protestant theologian and later founder of the Francke Foundations in Halle owes its establishment to the first company dedicated to the production of the Bible, i.e. the first actual Bible society. Together with Carl Hildebrand von Canstein , this great Lübeck resident founded the “ Canstein Biblical Institute ” that still exists today .
In a "look back at the beginnings" of the Lübeck Bible Society on the 150th anniversary in 1964:
“Some time ago the public learned that the most valuable part of the archive of the Francke Foundations in Halle is a collection of Indian palm leaf manuscripts (so-called Oles) from the 18th century. There are 246 well-preserved specimens that came to Halle via the East Indian Mission. One can see from this that even then the missionaries sent by Francke to the mission fields in India did outstanding work in the field of Bible study. At that time, your work had a considerable influence on the Indian language and culture. This is how u. a. the famous translation of the Bible into Tamul and a grammar of the Malabar dialects, which is said to be the basis of the official language of New Delhi . For over a hundred years, this Bible Institute, founded by AH Francke and von Canstein, was the only German Bible Society. It was not until the years 1812 to 1816 that new Bible societies were established in Germany on the initiative of the British and Foreign Bible Society , which was founded in London in 1804 with the aim of 'The Bible for the World'. "
history
19th century
The founding of the Lübeck Bible Society in 1814 occurred at a turbulent time:
“The French resided in a beautiful area. Her guard camped in the Holy Spirit Hospital . The incorporation of the old Hanseatic city into the department of the mouths of the Elbe was complete. Perhaps the citizens suspected that in Lübeck, and not only in Tyrol and elsewhere, arbitrariness would degenerate into martial law. The continental blockade had not only England's commercial, but also the literary, intellectual, spiritual, and this Empire's pioneering initiatives largely inhibited and dammed by it. After the collapse of the Napoleonic construction of Europe, the concentrated industrial and missionary force discharged in elemental force and flooded - like a storm surge - not only into the colonial countries, but also into the European development areas, especially those of the Russian allied tsarist empire and its Orthodox church landscapes. "
The “ book of books ” turned out to be “limitless” in the truest sense of the word, its contents jumped all national borders - and the pastor of the German Luther Church in London , Robert Pinkerton, furthermore John Paterson and others. a. m., coming from Britain , as enthusiastic pioneers of Bible dissemination, they left a chain of Bible societies everywhere in southern, central and northern Germany, in northern and eastern Europe.
“The expansive Scottish Presbyterian initiative found the peoples of the mainland and also their ruling princes and cabinets, their councilors and citizens in an unreserved willingness to accept. People were crying out for political stability, for commercial progress and religious awakening, the prerequisites for a happy and secure future. "
Johannes Geibel , preacher of the evangelical reformed congregation in Lübeck (and father of the Lübeck poet Emanuel Geibel ), addressed the Lübeck public on September 16, 1814 with an appeal “A word to my fellow citizens” to put an end to the Biblical distress. 81 people followed the call, Geibel himself only took over the secretariat of the society, while the patrician community and the citizens were active in leadership and donation.
It was a matter of course that the external organization of the Lübeck Bible Society should be based on the "Draft for the Establishment of Bible Societies in Northern Germany" that had already arrived in Lübeck from London in the summer of 1814. Paterson, Henderson and Pinkerton, the intellectual authors, were so important experts on German political and spiritual conditions that the structure of their "draft" became the basis of the 13 points of the order of the Lübeck Bible Society.
The clergy and leading Lübeck bourgeois families took over the management of the company from then on: Mayor Overbeck , Syndicus Curtius , the preachers Eschenburg and Geibel , Federau , the school teachers Papke and Poser as well as the families Lindenberg , Nölting , Niederegger , Pauli , Ganslandt , Gütschow , Stolterfoth and many others .
Annual assemblies were convened beginning October 31, 1817. With a divine service prelude they took a firm place in the celebration sequence of the Luebschen Sundays. The founding period ended when the Lübeck Bible Society expanded to the “buten der Stadt” area and established connections with the Bible Societies in Basel, Hamburg-Altona , Schleswig-Holstein , Stockholm and St. Petersburg to “bring each other closer” .
On September 8, 1856, a "Conference of German Bible Societies" met for the first time in Lübeck. The occasion was the revision of the Luther Bible . Pastor Carl Mönckeberg gave a lecture on "The union of the Bible Societies about a certain common text form of Luther's Bible translation". At the same time it was decided to continue to meet regularly on the occasion of the church days .
20th century
On November 8, 1964, the Lübeck Bible Society celebrated its 150th anniversary. The invitation said:
“The Lübeck Bible Society, founded in 1814, has now existed for 150 years. She is one of Germany's oldest, the Bible spreading Bible Societies and heard about the Association of Evangelical Bible Societies in Germany the United Bible societies to. "
Lectures were given by Pastor Steiner, Wuppertal-Barmen, chairman of the Bergische Bibelgesellschaft; Pastor F. Visser, Amsterdam, Secretary of the Dutch Bible Society; Karl Uhl, Director of the British and Foreign Bible Society , Vienna branch; Müller, Wuppertal-Barmen, managing director of the Association of Evangelical Bible Societies in Germany. Bishop Heinrich Meyer was the patron of the anniversary events .
In a report on the 150th anniversary of the Lübeck Bible Society it says:
“Until World War II, the Lübeck Bible Society limited itself to distributing the Bible in its own area. In recent decades, however, the world population has increased much faster than the Bible societies were able to produce Bibles and parts of the Bible. The spread of the Bible in the world has so far been carried out almost exclusively by the British, American and Dutch Bible societies. Following their example, the Lübeck Bible Society has decided to contribute to the printing and distribution of the Bible in India, Indonesia and Africa. In doing so she follows the call of the World Federation of Bible Societies to 'God's word for a new time'. "
On September 17, 1989, the Lübeck Bible Society celebrated its 175th anniversary. The well-known theological writer Heinz Zahrnt spoke on the occasion of the 175th anniversary in the Reformed Church on the subject of "When the letter becomes spirit again - the Bible as the basis of a new theology of experience".
21st century
Spreading the Bible is still the fundamental task of the Lübeck Bible Society. In 2002 and 2003, all Lübeck medical practices and hospitals were equipped with a children's Bible in the waiting rooms .
In the Year of the Bible 2003, the Lübeck Bible Society organized together with the then church district Lübeck under the patronage of Bishop Bärbel Wartenberg-Potter on 30./31. August a big Bible festival on the market square in Lübeck. In September, the Bible Shuttle was available for schools and confirmation groups at various locations in the city.
On September 17, 2014, the Lübeck Bible Society celebrated its 200th anniversary. In 2017, on the occasion of the anniversary of the Reformation, the revised Luther Bible was presented at many community events .
On December 10, 2017, Ursula Hauser, deputy chairwoman of the Lübeck Bible Society, received the Bugenhagen Medal in Lübeck Cathedral for her diverse commitment to the Northern Church. The Bugenhagen Medal is named after the North German reformer and Bible translator Johannes Bugenhagen and has been awarded since 1959, first in the Hamburg Church , then in the North Elbe Church and now in the North Church .
Today the Lübeck Bible Society is one of the smallest (in terms of area), because it is limited to the Lübeck provost in the Lübeck-Lauenburg parish of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Northern Germany. It is still run on a voluntary basis, just as it was in the beginning. Almost all communities in Lübeck are members. Book tables are provided for community festivals and special services in Lübeck's communities to present the multitude of possible editions of the Bible for adults and children.
swell
- Lübecker Bibelgesellschaft (Ed.): Man does not live on bread alone. Jubilee publication of the Lübeck Bible Society on the occasion of its 150th anniversary in 1964 , Lübeck 1964
- Peter Godzik (Ed.): History of the North Elbian Bible Societies , 2004 (online at pkgodzik.de) (PDF; 411 kB)
literature
- Wilhelm Gundert: History of the German Bible Societies in the 19th Century (Texts and Works on the Bible 3) , Bielefeld: Luther 1987, pp. 114, 116 f., 173, 226, 259, 310, 315.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ https://www.die-bibel.de/ueber-uns/regionale-bibelgesellschaft/
- ↑ a b c North Elbian Church Archives , holdings Lübeck: Lübecker Biblical Society ( Memento from June 17, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ a b Horst Weimann: From the founding history of the Lübecker Bibelgesellschaft , in: Jubiläumsschrift 1964, p. 9
- ↑ cf. Carl Bertheau: Mönckeberg, Carl . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 52, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1906, pp. 464-468.