At the meetings the minutes were taken by Rörer, a capable amanuensis. What has been preserved of them gives us a glimpse into the workshop, where, from 1539 to 1541, the revision of the Bible undertaken by Luther was carried out. Of Rörer’s minutes those are still extant which record the conferences on the revision of the translation of the Psalms, and also a considerable portion of those on the work of 1539 on the Old Testament of which Mathesius speaks.[1960]
The account, as is so often the case with the Table-Talk, is written in a mixture of Latin and German; it is also distinguished by the same spontaneity and absence of constraint. It records discussions on all the books of the Old Testament saving Chronicles, Esdras and the “Apocrypha.” We have, in all, notes of meetings held on thirty-two various dates. Very often the sessions were broken owing to the members being otherwise engaged, or absent on journeys. The speakers mentioned by name, Luther in particular, often give their views on the sense of the original or on its German rendering. As a rule Luther first submits his proposals or difficulties and then listens to the views of the rest. At times interesting side-lights are thrown on contemporary history, and we also meet some noteworthy obiter dicta.
On Genesis xii. 11 ff. Melanchthon, alluding to Abraham’s lie in Egypt when he declared his wife to be his sister, says: “I think he did this rather out of greatness than out of weakness of faith.” Luther, who elsewhere does not blame Abraham for this[1961] and also sees its reason in the greatness of his faith,[1962] here nevertheless disagrees with Melanchthon and says, “I prefer to regard it as weakness, for, we are all of us in the same hospital.”
Regarding the building of Solomon’s Temple (3 Kings vi.), he says: “We shall have much trouble over this horrid building. I should like to know where the seventy or eighty thousand carpenters with their axes came from. Did the whole land ever hold so many inhabitants? It is a queer business. Maybe the Jews corrupted the text. They cannot have had any carts but must have carried everything. I wish I had done with the book. I am a very unwilling builder at Solomon’s Temple.... It was finished about Pentecost. It must have been very lofty, some hundred cubits in height; our tower here is not much over sixty cubits.”
Now and then Luther brings the words of the Bible into relation with his own experiences. This he does especially in the minutes of the meetings held for the revision of the Psalter, which, of course, lends itself more easily to such application. In one passage (Ps. xviii. [xvii.] 15) he says, referring to his “combats”: “At the Coburg I saw my devils flying over the forest.” When discussing Ps. lxxiv. (lxxiii.) he lets fall the words: “I will send this as a farewell to my Papists and hope they will howl Amen to it, if God so will. Amen.” Of Ps. ciii. (cii.) he remarks: “I recite this Psalm daily when I am merry; it is a fine, cheerful Psalm for a poor soul.” Of Isaias xi. he says, extolling the prophet: “No prophet speaks so grandly as ‘Jesaia,’” and, on 1 Kings iii., again having a fling at the Papists: “Things went on pretty much the same as they do in Popery; nobody studied and the Bible was thrust aside.”
Only excerpts of the records of these meetings have so far appeared in print. They are, however, to be published in the Weimar edition of Luther’s works.[1963]
Besides the minutes, a small copy of both Testaments with notes which Luther made use of in his revision has been discovered at Jena. It is an edition printed in 1538-9, or possibly in 1540, then the most recent edition. The notes show a great many alterations in the text, chiefly such as had been agreed upon at the meetings, in Genesis, for instance, no less than two hundred. The entries, so far as they represent the result of the conferences, constitute the link between Rörer’s minutes and the new edition subsequently published. The alterations in the latter seem to be taken, sometimes from the minutes, sometimes from Luther’s copy. “The Jena Old Testament,” says O. Reichert, is “a document that exemplifies Luther’s way of working; it proves that he felt he had never done enough for his best work, that he was always busy at it and was indefatigable in his efforts to produce a German Bible from the original text.”[1964]
The outcome of the work of revision was a great improvement in the Wittenberg Bible of 1540 and 1541 printed by Hans Lufft. Another edition, dating from 1542, embodied in the main most of the new emendations. The edition most highly prized is, however, the last that appeared during Luther’s lifetime, viz. that of 1545, which also contains new corrections. It has been called the “editio typica” of Luther’s Bible, though, possibly, that of 1546, with new alterations by Rörer, to which Luther is supposed to have given his approval, should be regarded as such.
The detailed account of this revision is not the only witness we have to the care and pains Luther bestowed on the work, for we have also the recently discovered manuscript copy of his translation, which Luther sent to the printers. The latter consists of portions of the Old Testament written with his own hand: Part of the Book of Judges, then Ruth, Kings, Paralipomena, Esdras, Nehemias and Esther, also Job, the Psalter, Proverbs, the Preacher and the Canticle of Canticles. They were published by the Magdeburg pastor, E. Thiele, in the Weimar edition from two MSS. at Zerbst and Berlin.[1965] Here we see how assiduously Luther corrects and deletes, how frequently he wrestles, so to speak, after the correct expression and cannot at times satisfy himself.[1966] Luther’s manuscript copy of the New Testament has not so far been discovered.