German Bibles - which versions of the Luther Bible (or other German Bibles) do Conservative Anabaptists use?

[Jeff Altweg]

The froshauer Bible was the one most family's brought with them to America ....Our old Froshauer was sold out of the family in 1968 , in Canada , a shame indeed , though the old hand writings were photocopyed, (It went for $800 in 1968, one like it sold at auction in Ohio last year ,for 80K...

An Ultra strict Amish Deacon in the mid-1970's ,named Ezra wagler,living in Bowling Green Mo ,had reprinted a very old German edition of the Bible , with strict guidelines that it was to be sold only to Amish people ...I once saw one , it was a rather crude looking and with a very plain black cover ,no fancy plates at all like the froshauer Bible has , He claimed the newer German editions ,especially the Luther ones , were too worldly ....He was very adamant about it .

[JohnL]

The froshauer Bible was the one most family's brought with them to America ....Our old Froshauer was sold out of the family in 1968 , in Canada , a shame indeed , though the old hand writings were photocopyed, (It went for $800 in 1968, one like it sold at auction in Ohio last year ,for 80K...

Wow. $80k! A 400 year old KJV Bible that was one of the original printings sold for $31k last year and that was with no photocopies bounded into it.

[MennoSimons1998]

Correction and update to my old inquiry:

As far as I can see, on a de-facto basis when it comes to the German language and its dialects (so no, the KJV and its usage among Conservative Anabaptists is not part of this discussion), all Old Order Anabaptists use the 1545 Letzter Hand Luther Bible (the last revision in Martin Luther's lifetime before his death a year later), and not the 1534 version (or do they indeed use the 1534 version sometimes?)

Conservative Anabaptists use both the 1545 Luther Bible and the 1912 revision by the German Evangelical Church Conference, and on a more limited scale in their vernacular tongues, the Mennonites use the 2003 Plautdietsch Bible by J.J. Neufeld and Ed Zacharias, and to a lesser extent the 2001 Reimer Bible, wherein only the NT, Psalms, and Proverbs were translated, and non-Old Order Amish use the 2013 Di Heilich Shrift by Hank Hershberger, the Wycliffe Bible Translators, TGS International, and Christian Aid Ministries in Pennsylvania German.[1]

As for the Hutterites, I was only able to find a Hutterisch translation of the New Testament by Martin Knauber, and given that I can only find digital app versions of it available, it is fair to assume that very, very few Hutterites actually use this Bible, or are aware that it even exists.

I really appreciate corrections to this update!

[1] Important note and warning: Since Di Heilich Shrift is in the Creative Commons open license, the Jehovah's Witnesses have predictably made their own modification of this Bible to add Watchtower theology from their "New World Translation" perversion of scripture onto it, on the internet whenever you type "Di Heilich Shrift", you will inevitably stumble upon the Watchtower version of this Pennsylvania German Bible, and not its original un-modified version by the Wycliffe Bible Translators/TGS International/Christian Aid Ministries, so please be very aware of this matter and consult which version of Di Heilich Shrift you and your Pennsilfaanisch-speaking friends stumble upon, especially given how aggressive when it comes to marketing and digital media JWs are, additionally, years ago I heard from an Amish country resident in Pennsylvania that the JWs have been making very prolific usage of phone apps targeting Pennsylvania German speakers in Amish areas, and that many of them have started to consume this content simply because they are the few phone apps available in Pennsilfaanisch, but that is a topic for another thread.

[JohnH]

I have yet to meet any PA Dutch speaker who had anything other than derision or laughter about Wycliffe’s sad attempt with this “translation”.

As a reminder, part of their motivation with this inaccurate, biased translation was to try to eliminate Old Order doctrines and practices:

“[The Amish] do not understand the German Scripture very well, and this can result in misinterpretation of the Scripture,” Hank says, referencing the Beatitudes as an example.

Martin Luther used a certain word in his translation to mean “blessed;” the same word is also used in Pennsylvania Dutch, but in this language it means “saved.” The confusion of this one word has resulted in a “works salvation” theology among the Amish, Hank explains.

“Instead of ‘blessed are the people,’ it means ‘saved are the people’ who do so-and-so, for theirs is the Kingdom of God.”
If more Amish churches were to use the Pennsylvania Dutch translation, Hank believes it would correct mistakes in doctrinal teaching. While Amish church leaders remain suspicious of the Pennsylvania Dutch Bible, some Amish families are using it for their home devotions.

Few things are more laughable than that Luther mistranslated in a manner to promote a works based salvation. I would never trust a translation from someone who makes claims that Old Order people’s doctrine on salvation is wrong; it’s clearly biased, and also an exhibition of people attempting to change the scriptures to suit their own ends.

[MennoSimons1998]

I have yet to meet any PA Dutch speaker who had anything other than derision or laughter about Wycliffe’s sad attempt with this “translation”.

As a reminder, part of their motivation with this inaccurate, biased translation was to try to eliminate Old Order doctrines and practices:

“[The Amish] do not understand the German Scripture very well, and this can result in misinterpretation of the Scripture,” Hank says, referencing the Beatitudes as an example.

Martin Luther used a certain word in his translation to mean “blessed;” the same word is also used in Pennsylvania Dutch, but in this language it means “saved.” The confusion of this one word has resulted in a “works salvation” theology among the Amish, Hank explains.

“Instead of ‘blessed are the people,’ it means ‘saved are the people’ who do so-and-so, for theirs is the Kingdom of God.”
If more Amish churches were to use the Pennsylvania Dutch translation, Hank believes it would correct mistakes in doctrinal teaching. While Amish church leaders remain suspicious of the Pennsylvania Dutch Bible, some Amish families are using it for their home devotions.

Few things are more laughable than that Luther mistranslated in a manner to promote a works based salvation. I would never trust a translation from someone who makes claims that Old Order people’s doctrine on salvation is wrong; it’s clearly biased, and also an exhibition of people attempting to change the scriptures to suit their own ends.

As it is expected, really sad how these vernacular Bible translations have a strong Evangelical Protestant bias agenda that tries to "correct" Anabaptists to turn them into mainstream Protestants, a thing that I am really devastated about is that such biased Bibles take away the credibility for actual unbiased and faithful translations to be made in the languages of the OO Anabaptists and read by them, since I wish to dedicate my whole life to learning these languages, and preserving and translating their knowledge, literature, and culture.

Could Old Order and Conservative Mennonites and Amish theoretically accept faithful Bible translations in Plautdietsch and Pennsilfaanisch that do not contain these agendas of trying to change doctrine and accusations of them following false doctrines, and that were preferably made by members from their own communities instead of outsider Evangelical Protestant organizations who have their own biases?, because with such a "you are an uncivilized backwards heretic, so here is the true Bible that we enlightened and civilized outsiders made that you should be reading" rhetoric

I guess that this absurdity has only resulted in OOs becoming even more firmly dedicated to the Luther Bible, this is something similar to what motivates the KJV Only movement, but unlike the narrative spread by KJV Onlyists, this time it is actually true and very explicit that there is an agenda in newer translations of Anabaptist Bibles to alter doctrine.

[JohnH]

Traditional Text Publishers is doing just that, and has issued the gospels so far. I consider the translation quality excellent.

I am trying to persuade them to do a German translation; the challenge so far is the Nationwide members of TTP see zero value in a German translation.

A good person to talk to is Ivan Martin of Home Office Sport Supply in Penn Yan, NY. Give him a call - he’d be delighted to talk to you about Bible translations and languages.

[MennoSimons1998]

Traditional Text Publishers is doing just that, and has issued the gospels so far. I consider the translation quality excellent.

I am trying to persuade them to do a German translation; the challenge so far is the Nationwide members of TTP see zero value in a German translation.

A good person to talk to is Ivan Martin of Home Office Sport Supply in Penn Yan, NY. Give him a call - he’d be delighted to talk to you about Bible translations and languages.

Thank you so very much for the inquiry John!

In order to avoid another thread being made about this topic, I will therefore ask all of the questions related to my inquiry of Old Order Anabaptist Bibles that I have on one single comment here.

(Please note that I am not here to debate anything about Biblical texts and verses, modern textual criticism, or Martin Luther and his historical enmity with the Anabaptists, I am here to learn which Bible versions Old Order Anabaptists use, since my ultimate goal is to eventually make a digitized version of an "Anabaptist German Bible" that is universally accepted by all Old Order and Conservative Anabaptist denominations, from the most isolated Swartzentruber Amish who do not even use electricity, to the very modern-minded Rosedale Network Mennonites.)

1. Does this Pennsylvania Dutch Bible project by Traditional Text Publishers has a name?, and I am unfortunately not able to call Mr. Martin of NY for the time being, because I recently relocated to Italy, and I cannot afford to make such international phone calls at the moment.

2. Is this new Bible project a completely new translation of the original Hebrew and the Greek sources, or is it a revision of a pre-existing Bible?

3. If it is indeed a new translation from the Hebrew and Greek, are you aware of which exact Hebrew and Greek source texts they are using?

4. If they "see zero value in a German translation", then does this means that there exists Old Order Anabaptists who are open to start reading Bibles in their own vernacular languages, or that there is simply no reason to switch away from the Luther Bible by making a new High German translation, given that the Luther version is their most respected and traditional one?

5. Overall, what do Old Order Mennonites think of the 2001 Reimer Bible and the 2003 Plautdietsch Bible by by J.J. Neufeld and Ed Zacharias?, I was not able to find too much information about these Bibles to see if they have an ulterior agenda to alter doctrine within Old Order Mennonites, like how this previous Pennsilfaanisch Bible you mentioned had.

6. From what I could find, the majority of the Old Order Anabaptists in the Americas use a modified version of the 1545 Letzer Hand Luther Bible, they do not use the version from Luther's lifetime, but a version which contains more modern German spelling, and which also includes verses that correspond with the KJV Bible, that is, the text of the 1525 Second Rabbinic Bible and Theodore Beza's 1598 Textus Receptus, the source texts behind the KJV and the Reina-Valera Bibles, instead of how Luther used the 1494 Soncino Old Testament and Erasmus' 2nd edition Novum Testamentum Omne from 1519, which famously did not include verses such as the Comma Johanneum, but regardless, the Apocrypha is also included in all of them.

7. Old Order Anabaptists in the US have mostly used the 1819 revision of the Luther Bible printed by Johann Bär of Lancaster PA, which was exactly that - It was the 1545 Letzer Hand Luther Bible but with a more recent German spelling of words, and verses that corresponded with the KJV Bible that was ubiquitous in 19th-century America, but were lacking in the original Luther Bible of Luther's lifetime, correct?

8. I was unable to find a scan or other internet edition of Johann Bär's 1819 Luther Bible, or any Old Order Anabaptist Bible online whatsoever, I was however, able to find this 1903 Luther Bible by Concordia Publishing House of the Luther Church-Missouri Synod (https://archive.org/details/LutherBibleCPH1903), which is in the public domain, and it appears to have the exact same premise as the OO Anabaptist Bibles - it is still the 1545 Luther Bible, but with 19th century standardized German spelling, and the inclusion of verses that were included in the KJV, so technically speaking, would this 1903 CPH Bible be fully accepted by OO Anabapist congregations, and would it be an acceptable Bible to be used by preachers during church services?

[JohnH]

(Please note that I am not here to debate anything about Biblical texts and verses, modern textual criticism, or Martin Luther and his historical enmity with the Anabaptists, I am here to learn which Bible versions Old Order Anabaptists use, since my ultimate goal is to eventually make a digitized version of an "Anabaptist German Bible" that is universally accepted by all Old Order and Conservative Anabaptist denominations, from the most isolated Swartzentruber Amish who do not even use electricity, to the very modern-minded Rosedale Network Mennonites.)

1. Does this Pennsylvania Dutch Bible project by Traditional Text Publishers has a name?, and I am unfortunately not able to call Mr. Martin of NY for the time being, because I recently relocated to Italy, and I cannot afford to make such international phone calls at the moment.

Hi, you can make very inexpensive phone calls using Google Voice and VOIP. That might be an option.

I never said they were trying to do a PA Dutch translation. I said there has been talk of doing a standard German translation, but so far the project hasn't gotten off the ground since the "evangelical" conservative Mennonite constituencies (eg Nationwide) don't think there's any value in doing a German translation (despite the fact they would eagerly support a translation into some obscure language spoken by 100 people with no written form, etc.)

2. Is this new Bible project a completely new translation of the original Hebrew and the Greek sources, or is it a revision of a pre-existing Bible?

Yes, it's based on existing texts; specifically the same ones the KJV is based on.

3. If it is indeed a new translation from the Hebrew and Greek, are you aware of which exact Hebrew and Greek source texts they are using?

Masoretic and Received I think,

4. If they "see zero value in a German translation", then does this means that there exists Old Order Anabaptists who are open to start reading Bibles in their own vernacular languages, or that there is simply no reason to switch away from the Luther Bible by making a new High German translation, given that the Luther version is their most respected and traditional one?

This is a quirk unique to Nationwide (ultra-conservative) type of Mennonites (and those less conservative); they generally hold to a viewpoint that Old Order Mennonites aren't "saved" and they blame this in part on the German language. I personally don't agree with it, but it is what it is.

5. Overall, what do Old Order Mennonites think of the 2001 Reimer Bible and the 2003 Plautdietsch Bible by by J.J. Neufeld and Ed Zacharias?, I was not able to find too much information about these Bibles to see if they have an ulterior agenda to alter doctrine within Old Order Mennonites, like how this previous Pennsilfaanisch Bible you mentioned had.

Old Orders generally don't speak Plat so you'd have to find Old Colonists for an answer to that, but my impression of most Old Colonists is that they prefer using standard German as a written language. There isn't really anybody who speaks and reads Low German but somehow can't read Spanish, English, or standard German. It just doesn't happen.

A good analogy would be Norwegian with Bokmål vs. Nynorsk. Most Norwegians would vastly prefer to read and write Bokmål, and the fraction that does read and write Nynorsk is almost universally capable of also reading Bokmål.

So the Plat translations are essentially useless. It doesn't help that they have been typically done by evangelical-minded people who have a viewpoint that people need translations in their "native language" and who then claim that Old Colonists, Old Orders, Amish, etc. have the "wrong" theology because they "can't read the Bible" or "their bishops don't let them read the Bible" or "they aren't allowed to read a Bible they can understand". All of these statements are flatly untrue. Your typical PA Dutch speaker can read and write English far better than they can read and write PA Dutch.

6. From what I could find, the majority of the Old Order Anabaptists in the Americas use a modified version of the 1545 Letzer Hand Luther Bible, they do not use the version from Luther's lifetime, but a version which contains more modern German spelling, and which also includes verses that correspond with the KJV Bible, that is, the text of the 1525 Second Rabbinic Bible and Theodore Beza's 1598 Textus Receptus, the source texts behind the KJV and the Reina-Valera Bibles, instead of how Luther used the 1494 Soncino Old Testament and Erasmus' 2nd edition Novum Testamentum Omne from 1519, which famously did not include verses such as the Comma Johanneum, but regardless, the Apocrypha is also included in all of them.

Yes, and cutting out the apocrypha is another controversial thing that evangelicals almost universally do, since they don't consider it inspired scripture, which creates even more distrust of what evangelical Bible translators are up to.

7. Old Order Anabaptists in the US have mostly used the 1819 revision of the Luther Bible printed by Johann Bär of Lancaster PA, which was exactly that - It was the 1545 Letzer Hand Luther Bible but with a more recent German spelling of words, and verses that corresponded with the KJV Bible that was ubiquitous in 19th-century America, but were lacking in the original Luther Bible of Luther's lifetime, correct?

I don't know details about that.

8. I was unable to find a scan or other internet edition of Johann Bär's 1819 Luther Bible, or any Old Order Anabaptist Bible online whatsoever, I was however, able to find this 1903 Luther Bible by Concordia Publishing House of the Luther Church-Missouri Synod (https://archive.org/details/LutherBibleCPH1903), which is in the public domain, and it appears to have the exact same premise as the OO Anabaptist Bibles - it is still the 1545 Luther Bible, but with 19th century standardized German spelling, and the inclusion of verses that were included in the KJV, so technically speaking, would this 1903 CPH Bible be fully accepted by OO Anabapist congregations, and would it be an acceptable Bible to be used by preachers during church services?

I don't know that level of detail either. The guy I mentioned earlier would know, though.

[MennoSimons1998]

Thank you very much for the replies!, if it is possible, in the near future I will see if I will be able to contact Mr. Martin and ask him about which specific version of the Received Text they are using (as the TR is not a single text, but a family of multiple texts, like how I said, the KJV used the 1598 Theodore Beza edition, whereas on the internet the ones that are the most accessible and used are the 1550 Stephanus edition and the 1894 Scrivener reverse-engineered KJV Greek text), he will surely be able to answer all of my additional questions as well.

Also I wanted to write Lutheran Church not "Luther Church", and I wrote "by by" instead of just "by", but now I cannot edit my comment, I have been writing the English language very poorly recently.

[MennoSimons1998]

Hello John, I still got two simple questions:

Old Orders generally don't speak Plat so you'd have to find Old Colonists for an answer to that, but my impression of most Old Colonists is that they prefer using standard German as a written language. There isn't really anybody who speaks and reads Low German but somehow can't read Spanish, English, or standard German. It just doesn't happen.

Old Orders learn standard German to read their Luther Bibles, but well, even when its words are written with a more 19th century German spelling, the Luther Bible still feels quite archaic when compared to modern German texts, would they be able to comprehend basic newspaper reports from modern Germany?, asking since I have been reading the Neues Leben Bibel (example: https://www.bibleserver.com/NLB/Johannes1) as a part of me learning standard German.

I like Bibles written in any language that are written with a modern and easy-to-read style that can be comprehended by all ages, but still preserve important doctrines, and are not paraphrases that heavily alter and stretch the original source texts, could a easy-to-read standard German translation like the Neues Leben Bibel be acceptable to be used in the personal Bible study of younger OO Amish and Mennonites?

I already know that most Mennonites in Paraguay in Bolivia can read standard German newspapers just fine, and they can also communicate with non-Anabaptist German immigrant groups normally (and til this day outsiders and tourists think that they are just weird Germans), I guess that the language problem starts with the modern technological and cultural terms in 21st-century German that Anabaptists have no idea of what they mean.

Yes, and cutting out the apocrypha is another controversial thing that evangelicals almost universally do, since they don't consider it inspired scripture, which creates even more distrust of what evangelical Bible translators are up to.

This has been probably been discussed to death on the forum before, but do OO Anabaptists view the Apocrypha as fully inspired scripture as much as Genesis, similar to the view of Roman Catholics and Eastern & Oriental Orthodox, or do they hold to something similar to the classical Protestant view of the Apocrypha (which was originally included in the KJV), wherein it is treated as useful wisdom and tradition, but should not be the basis of doctrine? (I am already aware that the Amish hold Tobit in high regard and recite it in their wedding ceremonies).