The Success. The German Bible of Luther was saluted with the greatest enthusiasm, and became the most powerful help to the Reformation. Duke George o… - Philip Schaff

During the fourteenth century some unknown scholars prepared a new translation of the whole Bible into the Middle High German dialect. It slavishly follows the Latin Vulgate. It may be compared to Wiclif's English Version (1380), which was likewise made from the Vulgate, the original languages being then almost unknown in Europe. A copy of the New Testament of this version has been recently published, from a manuscript in the Premonstratensian convent of Tepl in Bohemia. Another copy is preserved in the college library at Freiberg in Saxony. Both are from the fourteenth century, and agree almost word for word with the first printed German Bible, but contain, besides the New Testament, the apocryphal letter of St. Paul to the Laodiceans, which is a worthless compilation of a few sentences from the genuine writings of the apostle.

The Pre-Lutheran German Bible. The precise origin of the mediaeval German Bible is still unknown. Dr. Ludwig Keller of Münster first suggested in his Die Reformation und die älteren Reformparteien, Leipzig, 1885, pp. 257-260, the hypothesis that it was made by Waldenses (who had also a Romanic version); and he tried to prove it in his Die Waldenser und die deutschen Bibelübersetzungen, Leipzig, 1886 (189 pages). Dr. Hermann Haupt, of Würzburg, took the same ground in his Die deutsche Bibelübersetzung der mittelalterlichen Waldenser in dem Codex Teplensis und der ersten gedruckten Bibel nachgewiesen, Würzburg, 1885 (64 pages); and again, in self-defense against Jostes, in Der waldensische Ursprung des Codex Teplensis und der vor-lutherischen deutschen Bibeldrucke, Würzburg, 1886. On the other hand, Dr. Franz Jostes, a Roman Catholic scholar, denied the Waldensian and defended the Catholic origin of that translation, in two pamphlets: Die Waldenser und die vorlutherische Bibelübersetzung, Münster, 1885 (44 pages), and Die Tepler Bibelübersetzung. Eine zweite Kritik, Münster, 1886 (43 pages). The same author promises a complete history of German Catholic Bible versions.

The Protestant Spirit of Luther's Version. Dr. Emser, one of the most learned opponents of the Reformation, singled out in Luther's New Testament several hundred linguistic blunders and heretical falsifications. Many of them were silently corrected in later editions. He published, by order of Duke George of Saxony, a new translation (1527) for the purpose of correcting the errors of "Luther and other heretics."