When all one hears in church are rules and moral guidance for us to follow, then the Bible is chained up in a far worse way.
Luther was the first person to translate the Bible into the language of the people.
T is is half true. T e Latin translation (the
Vulgate) already prepared in large measure by the fourth-century scholar Jerome was a perfectly good translation for its time because people in the Western parts of the Roman Empire spoke Latin. Translations into other languages were also produced in those days. In the 15th century several translations of Jerome’s Latin version were printed in German, among other languages. Luther’s contribution was that he translated
the Bible into German based upon the original languages of Greek and Hebrew. T e fi rst printed Greek New Testament appeared in 1516 and prompted Luther to begin learning Greek. When he began translating the New Testa- ment while in protective custody at the Wartburg Castle in 1522, he already knew Greek well enough (helped by Melanch- thon, his colleague and Greek professor) to
base his translation upon the Greek text. In the following years, the Hebrew text
survived almost intact. T ere many large tomes—not just Bibles—have chains, not so they won’t be read but just the opposite: so someone couldn’t steal these costly books for private use. Chains were the 16th century’s equivalent of the modern “targets” that librarians put in books to prevent theſt . Before the Reformation, the Bible was everywhere—
whole Bibles (even German translations made before Luther’s), excerpts in prayer books, stained-glass win- dows, statues and paintings inside and outside church buildings. T e problem in Luther’s day was not so much the lack of biblical stories and passages. T e problem was how people interpreted the Bible. T e same is true today. Many people think the Bible
is something we must try to fi gure out, like an answer book or rulebook or even a star chart for predicting the future. Luther discovered something quite diff erent: God’s
word is a word that works on us—putting to death the old, sinful creature through the law and raising up a new creature of faith through the gospel promises.
(helped by early translations of the Old Testament into Greek and Latin) served as the basis of Luther’s and his colleagues’ work.
We have examined 10 “legends” about Luther. T ere
are doubtless many more, and our age will invent new ones. Once we peel away the myths and misunderstand- ings, however, what remains is a remarkable fi gure in the history of the church. Luther rediscovered for the whole church that God
gives salvation by grace alone—without any reciprocal giſt on our part— received by faith in Christ alone, where that faith comes into being not by human decisions but by hearing God’s gracious word of forgiveness and rec- onciliation alone.
Author bio: Wengert is a retired ELCA pastor and former professor at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia.
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