The September Testament

Das Newe Testament Deutzsch (Wittenberg, September 1522)

Martin Luther, hidden, calling himself Junker Jörg

Eleven weeks of work by a man with a false name and a beard, in a room with one window and a view of trees.

Catch rate: Not found in the wild
Base research: 420
Stat total: 415

Base stats

Every stat is a checkable fact about the actual book, not a designer's mood. Bars are drawn against the highest value any book reaches.

Stamina150

Contend80

Defend140

Popularity45

Total415

Why these numbers

The game's own explanation, as a reader sees it in the backpack.

Stamina 150

The whole New Testament, from Erasmus’ Greek rather than from the Latin — and the German it invented is still the German Germany reads.

Contend 80

Modest. It does not argue. It hands over the text the argument was about, to people who had only ever heard it read in a language they did not speak.

Defend 140

The scholarship is real: Greek, with the Vulgate at his elbow, and Melanchthon checking. Its enemies attacked the marginal notes, not the translation.

Popularity 45

Slow. A whole testament is a heavy thing to bring to a debate, though it sold five thousand copies in three months, at a price that was most of a week’s wages.

Cited for this book

After the Edict of Worms, Luther was an outlaw. His prince had him seized and hidden in the Wartburg castle, where he grew a beard and called himself Knight George. There he translated the New Testament from Greek into German in about eleven weeks. It was printed in September 1522.

Development

A book develops as it is read — the fragment becomes the work, the work becomes the corpus.

The September Testament→
Lv 58

The German Bible

Moves learned

By levelling up. A book that develops keeps what it knew and learns the rest on its new schedule.

Lv	Move	Type	Cat.	Pwr	Acc	PP
1	Into Their Own Tongue	Exegesis	Argument	84	100%	10
1	Random Verse	Bible	Argument	10	100%	30
44	Chapter…	Bible	Scripture	—	—	12
46	As on Angels’ Wings	History	Argument	82	100%	15
49	A Boy That Driveth the Plough	Bible	Argument	88	95%	10
50	Speak German	History	Status	—	100%	5
52	Scripture or Plain Reason	Bible	Argument	95	100%	5

The quotes behind its moves

How to read these. In Scholar’s Dream, books argue with each other. Each thing a book can do in a debate is a move, and most moves carry a real quotation — the words the book puts on the table when it uses that move.

Strong against lists the opposing books and arguments a move was written to answer. Used against one of them, it hits much harder than usual: ×2 means twice the normal force, ×4 four times. It is the game’s way of saying: this is the sentence that answers that argument. Open an entry to read why.

“…the latter furnished the text from which, with the aid of Jerome’s Vulgate, the translations of Luther and Tyndale were made.”
Of Erasmus’ Greek Testament, in Schaff, History of the Christian Church VII, on the Bible in the vernacular (1888), public domain.public domain

Into Their Own Tongue

ExegesisArgument · power 84 · 100% accurate

In the gameEleven weeks in a castle under a false name, turning the Greek into German a ploughman could read out loud. The scholarship is real; the audience is the argument.

“No one accepted the challenge, and no discussion took place. … The Theses were copied, translated, printed, and spread as on angels’ wings throughout Germany and Europe in a few weeks.”
Schaff, History of the Christian Church VII §32 (1888), public domain. (trimmed quote)public domain

As on Angels’ Wings

HistoryArgument · power 82 · 100% accurate

In the gameThe theses were posted for a debate that never happened. Then somebody translated them, somebody else printed them without asking, and in a fortnight the argument was in every town in Germany.

“If God spare my life ere many years, I will cause a boy that driveth the plow, shall know more of the Scripture than thou dost.”
William Tyndale, as reported in John Foxe, Acts and Monuments (1563). FOXE IS THE SOLE WITNESS and is an interested one — see research/SECONDARY-SOURCES.md §3. Public domain; no snapshot on hand.public domain

A Boy That Driveth the Plough

BibleArgument · power 88 · 95% accurate

In the gameTyndale said this to a learned man who claimed the church’s law mattered more than God’s. It explains why he translated the Bible, and he was strangled and burned for doing it.

Strong against

×4Nothing Outside the Textan argument · why?

Tyndale swore that a boy at the plough would know more Scripture than the learned men who said it could not be read. That is a claim that meaning is plain enough to reach a farm. Derrida wrote books and expected them to be understood, and every reader who has followed him has assumed the same.

“Unless I am refuted and convicted by testimonies of the Scriptures or by clear arguments (since I believe neither the Pope nor the Councils alone; it being evident that they have often erred and contradicted themselves), I am conquered by the Holy Scriptures quoted by me, and my conscience is bound in the word of God.”
Luther before the Diet of Worms, 18 April 1521, in Schaff, History of the Christian Church VII §54 (1888), public domain. (trimmed quote)public domain

Scripture or Plain Reason

BibleArgument · power 95 · 100% accurate

In the gameNot defiance. A rule, stated in a hostile court, about what is allowed to change a man’s mind — and it puts popes and councils on the list of things that can be wrong.

Strong against

×4The Leipzig Casean argument · why?

He asked whether a council can be wrong. Here is the rule that answers him, and it took a hostile court and two more years to say it out loud.

×3The Casuistan argument · why?

"Follow the modern casuists, not the ancient fathers" — answered by the rule that a thing stands or falls on Scripture.

×3The Edict of Wormsa book · why?

It cannot be refuted by an edict, which is the only instrument in the room.

×2.5The Cardinal’s Demandan argument · why?

He came for a retraction and is being offered a rule. There is no procedure for that in the mandate in his hand.

×2Another Testamentan argument · why?

Luther would be corrected by Scripture and nothing else. A new book that corrects the old one is exactly what that standard refuses!

×2The Book of Mormona book · why?

Luther would be corrected by Scripture and nothing else. A new book that corrects the old one is exactly what that standard refuses!

×0.5The Charge of Noveltyan argument · why?

A rule about what changes a mind. He is not asking what changes a mind; he is asking what year it started.