The German Bible; 2001 travels; logos as "voice"

Martin Luther’s reasoning about translating of the New Testament into German is so dear. He saw that the people needed to have the “song” (my word) of the German language. Our authors (Mary Trammell and William Dawley - of The Reforming Power of the Scriptures) put it this way - p. 143/4:

“Primarily he believed that the Old Testament words should sound right in German. So the group had to strike a balance between what sounded right to the ear and what was correct in a literal sense ... 

"Luther didn’t want his Bible or the characters in it to sound Hebraic or foreign; he wanted them to sound thoroughly German ... he wanted good, clear, “marketplace” language. ... The effect was easy to read and beautiful to listen to."  

It seems the transcribers were so immersed in the Latin of the church that they found it difficult to think in German for the purpose of getting the message straight for the people.

I recall being in Italy in the year 1972 and having short stroll around Milan. (The Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II was prominent and impressive. I think we had cakes!) The local Christian Science practitioner was my guide; she mentioned that she felt the Catholic laypeople would be spiritually freed to a certain extent now that the Mass was no longer read in Latin. (The Second Vatican Council of 1962-65 made provision for the reading of the Mass in the vernacular. Up until then the people only heard the preaching in Latin.)

When our editor and I were in Frankfurt in 2001 we attended a Christian Science Sunday service there. At that time, there was a new translation of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures available to the German speaking congregations. It seemed there was some resistance to the new and a going-back to the original.  

Bless the translators! 

Joyce Voysey

Ed. Of course that church service was entirely in German, but how wonderful it was, especially the singing! 

Somewhat in the strain of hearing God's word - not only in church but anywhere, anytime - readers may be interested to check out the translation of and discussion about John 1: 1-5 in The Voice translation, especially in their translation of logos. You can find in at Bible Gateway. (A sometime reader of this blog in the US, Colleen, has passed on this tip in a somewhat circuitous way. Thanks Colleen!) I love what they have to say about "voice".