It was partly the defects of the translation itself, partly the cleverly calculated and thus all the more dangerous marginal glosses, which called forth objections and warnings from Catholic writers as soon as the work was published.
Hier. Emser complains that Luther “made Scripture to turn everywhere on faith and works, even when neither faith nor works are thought of.” Emser speaks of more than 1400 passages which Luther had rendered in a false and heretical sense, though many of the passages he instances are not of any great importance.[2011]
Johann Hasenberg, the Leipzig Professor, even went so far as to enumerate three thousand passages badly rendered in the German Bible.[2012]
The theological faculty at Leipzig had declared as early as Jan. 6, 1523, that Luther had introduced his erroneous doctrines into the German Bible, a verdict on which Duke George took his stand when issuing his prohibition. Emser now set to work to carry out the Duke’s further instructions, viz. that “he should revise anew the New Testament in accordance with the tenor and arrangement of the old, authentic text, and restore it and set it in order throughout.”[2013] His purpose was mainly to weed out the theological errors. His new edition of Luther’s text was revised according to the Vulgate and provided with notes on the Greek. He also bought from Cranach the blocks for the illustrations (see below, p. 528), rejecting, however, such of the cuts as were too insulting, for instance, those in which the Papal tiara appears. The many excellencies of the language of Luther’s version, and almost all the fruits of his labours, thus passed into Emser’s edition, which appeared at Leipzig in 1527. Absence of copyright laws explains to some extent Emser’s action. Emser’s Bible, which was also made up to resemble Luther’s folio volumes, bore no translator’s name and was simply entitled: “Das Naw Testament nach Lawt der christlichen Kirchen bewertem Text corrigiert un wiederumb zurecht gebracht,” and thus made no claim to being a new or original translation. As, however, Luther, the original translator, had been severely censured in Duke George’s Introduction we can readily understand that he was much vexed at the revision of his work and accused the editor of plagiarism.[2014] As Kawerau, however, remarks, “had he (Emser) laid claim to being an actual ‘translator,’ then his work would indeed have deserved to be styled a piece of plagiarism, as it has even down to our own day; but this he did not do, and merely wished to be regarded as the corrector of the Lutheran translation; hence this charge may be dismissed as unfair.”[2015] The second edition, however, which appeared after his death, bore Emser’s name as the translator: “Das New Testament, so Emser säliger verdeutscht.” This second edition was brought out by Augustine Alveld, as recent research has proved.[2016] In it certain coarse expressions which Emser had borrowed from Luther’s Bible were supplanted by more “seemly” words “for the sake of the maidens and the pure of heart,” a circumstance which incidentally shows that even Luther’s more moderate style of writing, as we find it in his Bible, was felt to be unusual and not always quite proper.
Johann Dietenberger, a Bible expert and contemporary of Luther’s, wrote: Although Luther constantly appeals to Holy Scripture, yet there is no one who takes away from or adds to it more than he. “Of the Bible he rejects and adds what he pleases in order to establish his errors.”[2017] Dietenberger, a Mayence Dominican, published a complete translation of Holy Scripture in 1534, making considerable use for this purpose of Luther’s German Bible. He says in his Preface, in explanation of this, that he had been urgently requested to “go through the recent German translation of the Bible (Luther’s) and remove all that was not in accordance with the faith.”[2018]
Johann Eck, who undertook a new translation of the whole Bible (1537), acted more independently; but, however good as a critic of Luther’s Bible, his own work met with but little success. His stilted German translation found but few readers.[2019]
Even to the followers of the new faith Luther’s translation gave offence owing to its want of fidelity. Bullinger, writing to Bucer on a certain question, remarks: “Luther admits that he has not been faithful in his translation of the Bible, in fact he is almost inclined to withdraw it.”[2020] J. L. Holler, who in 1654 wrote a pamphlet about his return from Protestantism to the Catholic Church, says that what moved him to take this step was his discovery of Luther’s dishonest rendering. He gave a long list of passages where Luther’s Bible departs from the true text.[2021]
In his treatment of the Canon of the Bible Luther proceeds with his customary licence. Those books of the Bible in which he thought he found his own doctrines most clearly enunciated he speaks of in the Prefaces as “the best,” viz. the Gospel and 1st Epistle of St. John, the Epistles of St. Paul, particularly those to the Romans, the Galatians and the Ephesians, and the 1st Epistle of Peter; the remaining books he arbitrarily ranks below these, and sometimes goes so far in depreciating them that their biblical character is jeopardised (below, p. 522, n. 6).
“The standard by which the greater or lesser value of each book is determined,” says Adolf Hausrath, is the degree of clearness with which the doctrine of justification by faith is proclaimed. “Protestant Bible criticism had its originator in Luther, only that his successors shrank from persevering in his footsteps.”[2022]