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The German Bible

The German Bible

Biblia, das ist die gantze Heilige Schrifft Deudsch (Wittenberg, 1534)

Luther, with Melanchthon, Aurogallus, Bugenhagen and a room full of arguing

More about Martin Luther →

The book that decided what German would be, assembled by a committee that could not agree on anything quickly.

Catch rate
Not found in the wild
Base research
460
Stat total
450

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.

Stamina170
Contend90
Defend150
Popularity40
Total450

Why these numbers

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

Stamina 170

The whole of it, Hebrew and Greek, revised for the rest of his life. As much book as this dream contains.

Contend 90

Modest. Its weight is in what it holds, not in how hard it hits: the Old Testament arrives, and with it every argument the New Testament had been quoting at people who could not check.

Defend 150

Twelve years, a committee, and the Hebrew read out loud until the German sounded like something a person would say.

Popularity 40

Slow. The whole Bible is a heavy book to carry into a debate, even one that standardised the language it was written in.

Cited for this book

Luther finished the whole Bible in 1534, twelve years after the New Testament. He had help: Melanchthon for the Greek, Aurogallus for the Hebrew, and a team that argued over single words for weeks. His rule was to listen to how the mother at home, the children in the street and the man at the market actually talk.

Development

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

Moves learned

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

LvMoveTypeCat.PwrAccPP
1Into Their Own TongueExegesisArgument84100%10
1Random VerseBibleArgument10100%30
44Chapter…BibleScripture——12
46As on Angels’ WingsHistoryArgument82100%15
49A Boy That Driveth the PloughBibleArgument8895%10
50Speak GermanHistoryStatus—100%5
52Scripture or Plain ReasonBibleArgument95100%5
55Back to the GrandfathersHistoryArgument80100%15

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.

“While Eck looked to the fathers, Luther went back to the grandfathers; he ascended from the stream of church history to the fountain of God’s Word.”

Schaff, History of the Christian Church VII §37 (1888), public domain.public domain

Back to the Grandfathers

HistoryArgument · power 80 · 100% accurate

In the gameSchaff’s own summary of the difference between the two men, and it is a method rather than a jibe: when the fathers are quoted at you, go and read what the fathers were reading.

Strong against
×2.5Before Lutheran argument · why?

A thousand years of fathers, and you have been carrying half of them since Antioch.

×2The Charge of Noveltyan argument · why?

He says you invented it. Go further back than he has gone.

×2The Consent of the Fathersan argument · why?

He has a list of fathers. You have been carrying half of them since Antioch.

×2The Leipzig Casean argument · why?

He is quoting the fathers at you. Go where they were reading.

Read it: The Mother in the House

The passages the Scriptorium holds on screen, word for word from a public-domain translation. Written in German.

“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)

“While Eck looked to the fathers, Luther went back to the grandfathers; he ascended from the stream of church history to the fountain of God’s Word.”

Schaff, History of the Christian Church VII §37 (1888), public domain.

“…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.
Notes

The September Testament was done in eleven weeks in hiding at the Wartburg. The full Bible took twelve more years and a room full of arguing — Melanchthon for the Greek, Aurogallus for the Hebrew, a standing committee over single words.

Luther’s rule was that you do not ask the Latin how to say it. You ask the mother in the house, the children in the street, the man at the market, and then you write down how they talk.

“Back to the grandfathers” is Schaff’s line for what happened at Leipzig, and it is the whole method: past the fathers, past the councils, to the fountain.