When I did Bible studies with some new Christians from the plating shop where I worked back in the late 70's and very early 80's, those people (basically Hippies and still using some drugs), they also insisted on the KJV. Back then I just assumed they felt that way because they probably had child-hood exposure to some church or another, and the KJV was still the dominant version in that era.Bootstrap wrote: ↑Sun Feb 25, 2024 9:40 am How well do Amish actually understand the Luther translation and the King James Bible? I would like people to really understand the Bible and get engrossed in it, not just memorizing individual verses, but really getting caught up in the text and reading it. And translations can get in the way of that.
When I did prison ministry, I was struck by the fact that many, many prisoners insisted on the King James Bible, but did not understand it. And studies have shown that most readers have a harder time understanding the King James than modern versions.
I suspect that may be true of the Luther Bible as well. I haven't ever actually had the kind of conversation with an Amish person that would tell me how well they read Luther German, but it's quite different from the language I hear them speak. And the KJV is quite different from modern English.
But I don't know how well they would understand the Pennsylvania Dutch Bible either. Or how widely used it is. I do think it was done by a competent translator, who was trying to do something good. It could be really helpful, it could miss the mark, I have no way of knowing. It might be a great resource that simply won't get used because the Amish will continue to use the older translations. Or maybe it is getting used, perhaps more by individuals than by congregations. I wouldn't know.
I do not know High German, and only partially understand and speak Deitsch. So I also cannot judge how well the Amish understand High German. But some Old Order ministers have told me that they read the Deitsch version during study, to help them understand the Deutsch.
I haven't had any contact with him in recent years, but one OO Amish minister I know was also a school teacher, and really stressed that area of learning in the school - the ability to read and understand Deutsch. (I helped him get German fonts, so that he could produce study material for his students. He also published a German language periodical.)
So I would say that the ability to read & understand Deutsch varies greatly from person to person. (Sometimes when I'm on-site at an Amish-owned business, the owner's young children are there as well, and if they are very young, I try to talk with them a bit in Deitsch. At one business here in the Berlin area, when I did that, the child's mother told me that he doesn't speak much Deitsch, mostly only English. And yes, these were Old Order Amish.)
(When my mom was a child, part of the Sunday School time was spent with learning to read German, and the rest of the time was actual Bible study, also in German. This would have been in the mid thirties into the forties. At some point during the war the services were all switched to English, because 'we' were a very small minority in that area, and local suspicion and distrust was very high toward German speakers - to the point that police sometimes came in and broke up the services, forcing everyone to leave.)
