Biblia deutsch

Abstract

Martin Luthers's Translation of the whole Bible into German In the Middle Ages there did not exist any translation of the whole Bible into German, but only poetic paraphrases of certain parts of either the New or the Old Testament which were considered as extremely important. An outstanding example of a Bibleparaphrase from Carolingian times is the "Heliand" using Tatians "Diatessaron" as copy. Translations of the whole Bible into vernacular German do not occur before 14th century, the most prominent print being the Mentelin-Bible of 1466. Whereas all German translations of the late Middle Ages were taken from Latin Vulgata, Luther used for his translation of the New Testament the Greek edition of Erasmus and for the Old Testament two prints of Hebrew text. The translation of the whole Bible, first edited in 1534 and several times revised by Luther and his friends, implies important hermeneutical insights. It led to a sacralisation and vitalisation of the German language which strongly influenced its development up to 18th century.