German Translator Works of the King James Version of the Bible

Since the original manuscripts of the Bible were written in Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek, the texts needed to be translated so that we could understand them. German language translations of the Bible have existed since the Middle Ages. Although the Luther’s German Translator edition of the Bible is not the first translation of the bible into German, it is maybe the most important and of greatest influence on the development of the literary German language. The German translation of the Bible was succeeded by Protestant versions in other European languages – French, Dutch and English. Luther did his best to create a faithful translation of the Bible which sounded natural and close to common people. The influence that Martin Luther’s German Translation of the Bible had on the development of the German language is often compared to the influence the King James Version had on English.The translation of the Bible from Hebrew and Greek by John Nelson Darby is known as Darby Bible.

Having graduated from Trinity College in Dublin with honuors, John Nelson Darby was invested with priest functions in the founded church in Ireland in 1825, and ministered in remote parishes attending to the needs of the people who lived there. In 1827 he came to believe that the church to which he belonged was hopelessly corrupt, so he resigned his position as a clergyman, and began to associate with certain “brethren” in Dublin who shared his views. He was dissatisfied with the existing Bible versions in French and German, and so he collaborated with German and French followers in the creation of new versions in those languages. With some German associates he produced the German Translation, called “Elberfelder Bible,” and with French-speaking followers he produced the French Translation version, called “Pau Bible.”
The Bible translation ‘Elberfelder Bibel’ is known as one of the most accurate German Bible translations. While Luther used a mixed style of formal equivalence and interpretive translation, the Elberfelder strictly renders the text word-for-word, also trying to conform to the grammatical, syntactic and idiomatic conventions of the used Greek verbs, etc.

Darby thought that it is not necessary to make a new English version of the Bible because he considered King James Version quite good and advised his associates to use it. However, he decided to make a new version of the New Testament, trying to keep closer to the original text for study needs. He published it in 1867, with revised editions in 1872 and 1884 and after his death, some of his students produced an Old Testament translation based on his German and French Translation. The complete Darby Bible was first published in 1890.

The first printed Italian Translation version of the Bible appeared in Venice in 1471, translated from the Latin Vulgate by Niccolò Malermi. The most widely used Italian Translation of the Bible among Evangelic and Protestant Christians is the Nuova Riveduta (meaning “Newly Revised”). The official version of the Italian Catholic church – the Bible of CEI was published in 1971 and revised in 2008, in view of the newly discovered New Testament documents.

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Tagged as:  Bible · Language · Luther · Protestant · Translation