Found in Translation

Part of the popularity of Luther ’s translation was due to the language he
used. The German he employed at the time seemed vibrant and modern and
was more designed for the ear than for the eye. He knew that his translation
would be read aloud, so he took care to make sure that the words sounded
pleasant when spoken. He listened carefully to the rhythm of the language,
avoiding sentences with too many unwieldy subordinate clauses and complex
structures. “To translate properly is to render the spirit of a foreign language
into our own idiom,” he wrote. “I try to speak as men do in the market place.”
For example, Luther took Matthew 12:34b and broke it into two sentences to
make it easier to read aloud—and simpler to memorize and understand. The
King James Version follows the Greek syntax closely: “for out of the
abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.” Luther translated this verse into
German as, “Wes das Hertz vol ist, des gehet der Mund vber,” or in English,
“The person with a full heart has an overflowing mouth.”
Luther himself was born a peasant, so it’s no wonder he wanted to make sure
that commoners—including his own family members—would be able to
understand the book that he regarded as holy. Luther strove to incorporate

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colloquial language as well as expressions that were modern or just coming
into use. Occasionally, he even coined his own terms, popularizing them in the
process. Terms like geistreich (intelligent), kleingläubig (of little faith),
Machtwort (authoritative guidance), and Hochmut (arrogance) are terms that
were created by Luther and are still used today. To give his translation both a
local and universal appeal, he embraced the entire range of the German
tongue, incorporating linguistic features from as many geographic regions as
possible.
Luther ’s translation was one of the most important influences in the history
of the development of the German language. Before its publication in 1522,
there was no standard language in German literature.
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Before long, the direct
and uncomplicated language of Luther ’s translation found its way into the
pulpits and parish schools. His words became their words; his phrasing became
theirs, too. The language of his translation began to surface in both scholarly
writing and in the homes of peasants.
Though he translated the entire New Testament in just ten weeks, Luther took
another twelve years to produce a complete translation of the entire Bible. Part
of the reason it took him so long was his relentless perfectionism. Often, in
search of the most intelligible word, he would spend a month talking to people
in different regions. He once had the town butcher cut up sheep so that he could
study their entrails and better translate sections on rites of sacrifice under
Mosaic law. He made constant revisions and corrections, purging the
translation of obscure or ambiguous words, painstakingly improving quality
and readability, and always keeping in mind his goal of producing a text that
would be rhythmic and melodious when read aloud. To improve the quality of
his translations even further, he formed a translation committee, which he
called a Sanhedrin, to ensure a translation that matched his standards for
readability and a natural cadence when spoken aloud. “Translators must never
work by themselves,” he wrote. “When one is alone, the best and most suitable
words do not always occur to him.”
He even went so far as to complain that the German language was simply
insufficient to express the beauty of Hebrew texts. “It is as though one were to
force a nightingale to imitate a cuckoo, to give up his own glorious melody
for a monotonous song he must certainly hate,” he wrote. When writing about
the translation into German of the book of Job, a biblical figure who was tested
repeatedly by God through numerous tribulations, Luther wittily observed that
the book seemed to suffer even more at the hands of the translator than Job had
in his original travails.
In spite of Luther ’s ongoing translation misgivings, his work rescued the

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Bible from its place in Germany as a foreign book in a foreign tongue. The
language into which he translated—not just German, but the vernacular—
changed individuals’ ability to not only understand their faith more deeply, but
to question and reflect on it.

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