Letter from interpreting

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Martin Luther's letter of interpreting and intercession of the saints is a kind of open letter in which Luther expresses himself eight years after his translation of the Bible of the New Testament on the translation and translation from Latin and ancient Greek into German . Luther wrote the letter on interpreting , as it is abbreviated, in 1530 at the Veste Coburg . It is regarded as Luther's characteristic testimony to his conception of the task of the translator and is viewed in biblical and linguistic research as an important source for the history of the Lutheran translation of the Bible. The letter is a plea for an understandable language and a corresponding reproduction and interpretation of texts. It was also created as a response to the Catholic charge of falsifying the text in Luther's translation of the Bible .

Historical background

After his refusal to revoke his theses at the Diet of Worms in 1521, Luther found refuge with his sovereign Frederick of Saxony in the Wartburg near Eisenach. During his stay there from May 4, 1521 to March 1, 1522, he translated the New Testament into "a pure and clear German". In addition to the Latin version of the Bible, he used Hebrew and Greek sources as a template.

In the letter on interpreting , which roughly corresponds to what is also known as a pamphlet , Luther deals in detail with his way of translating the Bible. He wrote the letter in 1530 during the Augsburg Reichstag on the Veste Coburg, from where he sent a total of 105 letters to his friends in Augsburg and all of Germany. The Protestant side presented there with the Augsburg Confession worked out by Philipp Melanchthon (1497-1560) a kind of manifesto of their doctrine of the faith. In part of his letter , Luther addresses a report by Melanchthon about his negotiations in Augsburg, including the dispute over some passages in the translation of the Bible. At that time, Luther was under the protection of John the Constant , who was Elector of Saxony from 1525 to 1532. At the Diet of Augsburg Luther was the basis of the resolutions of the Diet of Worms still under imperial ban was not participate. Elector Johann originally wanted to quarter Luther in the free imperial city of Nuremberg . There he would not have been far removed from the negotiations in Augsburg. But Nuremberg refused. The city did not want to get into trouble with Emperor Charles V. That is why Luther stayed in Coburg . Apparently he liked the fortress quite well. In a letter to Melanchthon he wrote: “The place is very pretty and very comfortable for studying ... Nothing is missing for our seclusion. That big house that protrudes from the castle is entirely ours and we have got the keys to all the rooms. "

The Sendbrief is Luther's best-known Coburg work. Luther sent the finished manuscript on September 12, 1530 to his friend Wenzeslaus Linck (1483–1547) with the order to forward it to the Nuremberg printer Georg Rottmaier for printing.

Addressees and target direction

With the letter , Luther wanted to defend himself above all against the Catholic accusation of falsification of the text. The criticism from the Catholic side came in particular from Luther's theological opponent Johannes Eck and was sparked by the translation of Paul's letter to the Romans . Since Luther was only able to attend the Augsburg Reichstag from afar in Coburg, he intervened in the dispute that took place there with his pamphlet. He explains and defends his translation of the Bible and goes into detail on the dispute over the Latin word "Sola" ("alone"), which he cites as an example of the defense of a non-literal translation.

There are numerous scientific treatises on the mission letter , which deal in particular with the intentions and aim of this pamphlet. What is certain is that it is a text that took place in the midst of a heated discussion about Luther's translation of the Bible. On the other hand, Luther also answers specific questions from his colleagues and supporters.

At the same time, the letter is a response to the Catholic version of Luther's translation of the Bible published by Hieronymus Emser in 1527 , which was widely distributed in Catholic circles. In his foreword, Emser accuses Luther of translating incorrectly. However, Emser's version does not differ too far from Luther's translation of the Bible. That is why science today interprets Luther's letter primarily as an attempt to represent its own point of view more strongly.

The rebukes in the letter are less aimed at his opponents, whom he does not recognize as competent judges and who, as he puts it, steal his language, but are primarily aimed at his followers. Luther tries to show them that his Germanizations are linguistically and objectively justified.

  • Title of the letter

  • Introduction and dedication

  • About Hieronymus Emser

Content and structure

In the letter , Luther explains his approach to translating the Bible. He emphasizes the purpose, comprehensibility and consideration of the cultural and linguistic needs of the people whom he would like to address with his Bible translation and with the pamphlet. He mentions the difficulties in the translation process and the often tedious search for the right words as well as the later reaction of some readers, who either enjoy the smooth reading and assume that the translation was certainly child's play or, on the contrary, criticize the quality because they stumble over bumpy formulations.

Right at the beginning, Luther dedicates the letter to "To the merciful and farsighted N., my benevolent lord and friends" and immediately hands out the following to his opponents:

"For the first. If I, D. Luther, had been able to make sure that all the papists together were so knowledgeable that they could translate a chapter in the Scriptures correctly and well, then I would have been truly so humble and would have asked them for help and assistance, to Germanize the New Testament .... But you can tell that from my interpreting and learning German they speak and write German and so steal my language, which they knew little about before; But don't thank me for it, but rather need them against me. "

Luther repeatedly addresses one of the specific main points of contention in the missionary, his translation of Paul's letter to the Romans , and specifically on the passage from Rom. 3:28  LUT with Luther's controversial “ sola fide ” concept. Luther responded to the accusation that he had inserted the “alone” excluding the Catholic doctrine of good works without a textual basis (Latin “sola”) in the expression “solely through faith” . He justifies his “Sola” translation with three arguments: On the one hand, he points out that translating into German is a difficult task. Second, he admits that the “solum” he inserted is not in the Bible, but that it makes sense in German to insert “alone” to reinforce the statement:

"It's true. These four letters sola are not included. But wherever you want to make it clear and powerful, it belongs there. "

And finally, he points out that Latin or Greek cannot be translated literally into German without further ado. At the end he stretches back a long way; citing Ambrose and Augustine and asserting that he was not the first and only one to teach that faith alone makes one just, in order to base his thesis on undisputed authorities in church history.

Another central theme of the mission is Luther's utterances on the intercession of saints , as represented by Melanchthon in Article 21 of the Confessio Augustana on the “service of the saints”. Luther reaffirms his view that the invocation of the saints is not required in the Bible. It is against Scripture to invoke them alongside Jesus Christ as mediator and reconciler, especially since the service of worship draws the believers away from God and Christ and thus Christ's act of reconciliation through his death on the cross is called into question. ( 1 Tim 2,5  EU , Rom 8,34  LUT , 1 Joh 2,1  EU )

In the last paragraph of his pamphlet, Luther speaks of the innocence of Christians. He accuses the clergy of the Catholic Church, and above all the Pope , of forcing people to sin, and he describes the papists as "wicked and verrether" and "arch-murderer". At this point in the letter he breaks off suddenly and refers to a continuation, asks for the goodwill of the readers and speaks the initial blessing:

“But it wants to be too long now. This time it was enough to answer the question. Another time more. And keep my long handwriting too good. Christ our Lord be with us all. Amen."

In the epistle, Luther linked various topics, some of which were unrelated: at the beginning he explained that he was interested in answering two questions, namely the word alleyn in Romans, and whether the deceased saints could pray for us . The title of the letter "from interpreting" implies that the subject of translation has priority. A text analysis shows that only 20% of the text is about interpreting, around 18% go into Luther's “sola fide” conception in Romans, 11% concern the intercession of the saints, and the largest part of the text, around 40%, insists from explanations of his own and, sometimes quite polemical, the competence of his critics.

  • ".. blaring of the word sola"

  • "Whose heart is full ..."

  • "..Interpreting is an art"

Primacy of language

Luther wanted to offer the Bible readers a “completely clear German speech”. Luther assisted Philipp Melanchthon with his Bible translation, with whom he struggled with the formulation. In the letter , Luther writes “that we looked for a word for up to 14 days, three or four weeks”.

In the letter he gives concrete examples: "Ex abundantia cordis os loquitur" would literally mean "from the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks". But that, thinks Luther, no German understands. He proposes:

“Whatever your heart is full of, your mouth spills. That means spoken good German, which I diligently and unfortunately did not achieve or even met, because the Latin letters make it very difficult to speak good German. "

Some of Luther's statements in the letter about the manner in which he translated the Bible are quoted particularly frequently, for example:

“Because you don't have to ask the letters in the Latin language, how you should speak German, like these donkeys do, but you have to ask the mother in the house, the children in the streets, the common man in the market and the same about that Maul see how they talk and then interpret; then they understand and notice that one speaks German to them. "

Translate or interpret

Ultimately, Luther and his critics, regardless of the theological disputes, are concerned with the question of what is and what is not a true-to-the-work translation of the Bible, to be precise, how far a translation into translations is permissible. Luther postulates that the target language, i.e. German, has priority. The content of the Bible should be expressed using the means of the German target language, in “natural” German that is not tied to the grammatical structures of the source languages. This is particularly evident in the following passage:

"[...] but do not see that it nevertheless corresponds to the meaning of the text, and if you want to make it clear and powerfully German, it belongs there, because I wanted to speak German, not Latin nor Greek, when I wanted to speak German during interpreting. "

With Luther's letter, a discussion about the fidelity of translations that has dominated translation studies to this day began. Luther's approach has prevailed to a large extent that the translation does not have to be a one-to-one copy of an original text, but that texts can and sometimes have to be changed during translation.

  • "..speak German"

  • "..Only belief"

  • Greetings and blessings

See also

literature

Web links

Commons : Letter from interpreting  - collection of images, videos and audio files
LibriVox - Luther A letter from interpreting

The letter is spoken by Rolf Kaiser.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Letter: Pictures from the original. literaturportal-bayern.de, accessed on November 12, 2017 .
  2. ↑ Martin Luther: Letter from interpreting, original text. lernhelfer.de, accessed on November 12, 2017 .
  3. ↑ August 6, 1534 - Luther's translation of the Bible completed. wdr.de/stichtag, August 6, 2009, accessed on November 12, 2017 .
  4. ↑ Heike Reissig: Luther's letter: Pleasure and frustration of translating. bonalingua.wordpress.com, July 24, 2013, accessed November 12, 2017 .
  5. ↑ A workaholic within safe walls: Martin Luther in Coburg (1530). (No longer available online.) Landesbibliothek-coburg.de, archived from the original on August 8, 2017 ; accessed on November 15, 2017 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.landesbibliothek-coburg.de
  6. ^ Hermann Böhlaus successor 1909: D. Martin Luthers Werke. Critical complete edition. Retrieved November 1, 2017 .
  7. ↑ A workaholic within safe walls: Martin Luther in Coburg (1530). (No longer available online.) Landesbibliothek-coburg.de, archived from the original on August 8, 2017 ; accessed on November 15, 2017 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.landesbibliothek-coburg.de
  8. ↑ Hans-Wolfgang Schneiders: Luther's letter from interpreting - a contribution to demythologizing. trans-kom, accessed on November 16, 2017 .
  9. ↑ Martin Luther: Sendbrief vom Dolmetschen, original text, p. 2. lernhelfer.de, accessed on November 13, 2017 .
  10. ↑ Martin Luther: Sendbrief vom Dolmetschen, original text, p. 4. lernhelfer.de, accessed on November 12, 2017 .
  11. ↑ Martin Luther: Sendbrief vom Dolmetschen, original text, p. 11. lernhelfer.de, accessed on November 12, 2017 .
  12. ↑ Hans-Wolfgang Schneider: Luther's letter from interpreting - A contribution to demythologizing . trans-kom, Internet journal for translation and specialist communication, ISSN  1867-4844 , p. 15th f .
  13. ↑ Martin Luther: Sendbrief vom Dolmetschen, original text, p. 5. lernhelfer.de, accessed on November 12, 2017 .
  14. ↑ Martin Luther: Sendbrief vom Dolmetschen, original text, p. 4. lernhelfer.de, accessed on November 12, 2017 .
  15. ↑ Claudia Lorke: Dossier Translation vs. Machining. carstensinner.de, p. 2 , accessed on November 12, 2017 .
  16. ↑ Martin Luther: Sendbrief vom Dolmetschen, original text p. 6. lernhelfer.de, accessed on November 12, 2017 .
  17. ↑ Claudia Lorke: Dossier Translation vs. Machining. carstensinner.de, p. 6 , accessed on November 12, 2017 .