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Saturday, November 17, 2012

Luther Index, online resources for Luther's works

(2022-12-21: A DeepL English translation of the St. Louis Edition is now available HERE.)
(Updated links again October 14, 2021: updated broken Box.com links; March 16, 2017 — see comments below for update info from Steve Born)
(Updated resource links May 15, 2013 – see blog post of May 15 for links to online text of Luther)
[See also this later blog post for a table listing of the St. Louis Edition with links to HathiTrust, Google Books, Archive.org.]

For anyone (like me) who has struggled with researching Luther's writings between all the sources in the different languages, I have discovered a valuable online resource:
Steve Born's 
I found this through James Swan's resource links on his BeggarsAll blog website, on the right side under the section "Luther's Works, etc.", labeled "An Index to the Works of Martin Luther".  The BeggarsAll website also has other fairly extensive online resources on Luther's work here.  However, some of the English translations by Reformed translators are suspect.  (May Mr. Swan throw off his false Reformed "assurance", and accept the Bible's teaching of universal grace.  He will never be able to fully refute the errors of Romanists and he will never fully understand Martin Luther until he renounces the Reformed restriction of God's grace.)

The Luther Index cross-references the publications of the St. Louis EditionAmerican Edition, and Weimar Ausgabe.  It is a wonderful online resource to replace Vogel's Cross Reference printed publication (formerly by NPH, now P.O.D. by CPH).  Now I don't have to grab Vogel's book to cross reference Luther's works.  But note that neither Vogel's work or Steve Born's work is exhaustive since their content is limited to what was published in the American Edition, only one third of Luther's works.
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I also noticed recently another helpful resource link in Swan's site – Finn B. Andersen's website of Luther's works (from Denmark).  One page offers a compiled listing of online resources available for complete downloading via Archive.org and HathiTrust.org.  I was a bit surprised that not only was the Weimar Ausgabe (WA) available for download, but also the St. Louis Edition ("Walch 2" or W2), even if only single pages at a time.  The St. Louis Edition is listed as "Public Domain, Google Digitized".

St. Louis Edition

OK then, since the greatest non-English publication of Luther's works, the St. Louis Edition, is available from "HathiTrust", i.e. public universities of California, Virginia, Michigan, etc., then I am looking to make available for download all of my scanned copies (not Google's scans) of the St. Louis Edition.  My difficulty is that the total file size for all 25 books is 3.6 GB and so I don't know the best way to do this... especially not with my free Dropbox account.  And I notice that the following complete volumes are already available for PDF download::
Archive.org – Links to complete volumes
3,  4,  6,  12,  13-1,  14,  16,  19,  21-1,   21-2
Google Books – Links to complete volumes
10,  11,  18,  20,  22,  23

HathiTrust.org catalog – Links to volumes, no complete download (no vol. 7):
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 689, 10, 11, 12, 13-113-2, 1415, 1617, 18, 1920, 21-1, 21-222, 23

For now, I am making available a PDF file of the scanned complete volume 1, St. Louis Edition.
Download ==>> here. (NOTE! 111 MB file!!  Allow for download time. HathiTrust link here.)
download complete Volume 7HERE (NOTE! 181 MB file!!  No HathiTrust/Google Bks/Archive.org)

May 15, 2013: October 14, 2021 updated Box.com links
Volume 2  ––>> HERE (140 MB file)    Volume 5  ––>> HERE (111 MB file)
Volume 8  ––>> HERE (109 MB file)    Volume 9  ––>> HERE (135 MB file)
Volume 10––>> HERE (162 MB file)    Volume 11––>> HERE (190 MB file)
Volume 13b––>> HERE (102 MB file)  Volume 15––>> HERE (193 MB file)
Volume 17––>> HERE (169 MB file)    Volume 18––>> HERE (147 MB file)
Volume 20––>> HERE (192 MB file)    Volume 22––>> HERE (133 MB file)
Volume 23––>> HERE (149 MB file)

What does the availability of the online St. Louis Edition mean?  It means that all of the many references to it by Franz Pieper and C.F.W. Walther are now mostly available to find online.  And it means one can easily find American Edition translations where they are sometimes available.  I plan to include links to these online resources along with my own resources in the future.

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I am also making available a spreadsheet that might prove helpful in addition to Steve Born's Luther Index.  You will find that it includes much of what is not in the American Edition.  And it is sorted by the sequence in the St. Louis Edition. (Download of XLS worksheet here.)

Miscellaneous Resources

Wikipedia listing - not very complete
Project Wittenberg - only selected works of Luther; a Lutheran site
Book of Concord – Lutheran Confessions online; also "Historical Introduction" by Bente (also CPH, Internet Archive)
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My Offers To You, the Reader

  • If the reader is in great need of an English translation of ANY specific work of Luther, send me a private message request, and I will see if I can provide it for you. 
  • If the reader is interested in ANY of the publications from the old (German) Missouri Synod or the Synodical Conference, send me a comment or a private message and I will respond.  This includes all of Lehre und Wehre, and much of the following:  Der Lutheraner, synodical and district convention essays, books, etc. 
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A last technical note: my blog seems to work the best in Chrome web browser as it will immediately display the PDF downloads for instant viewing in the browser instead of having to open another window to view the PDFs.  Also the PDF viewer in Chrome will show my added boxed areas and underlines that some PDF viewers will not show.
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This blog post will be updated periodically as I get new information – click on "Luther Resources" in Labels section to the right for quick reference. Last updated December 21, 2022.

12 comments:

  1. Thanks for the reference to my Luther Index here, and thanks also for all this information on the St. Louis edition. I only just became aware you had a link to my index here, and I see that it is outdated. Sorry that I've been moving it around a bit as I've changed Internet providers and versions of my own web sites. The current links are these:

    http://www.steveborn.org/LuthersWorks/

    http://www.ex-ex-lutheran.com/LuthersWorks/

    They are different implementations on the server side but offer the same features and access the same database.

    I've made some improvements to the index since the version which was at the link in your post. You can now order the list by date, title, AE volume, StL (Walch) volume, or WA volume (but note that I haven't finished entering all the dates yet for the letters and hymns and a few other things). You can also choose the type of content displayed in the list: lectures, sermons, letters, hymns, table talk, other, or any combination of these types.

    I also plan on adding the titles from the new volumes of Luther's Works being published by CPH, and on making the design of the page more responsive (fit for display on any type of device - smart phone, tablet, or desktop computer).

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    1. Mr. Born: (not sure if my 1st reply went right)
      Thank you for the update on your LuthersWorks websites. I will study your current information in relation to my hyperlinks and will update as necessary. I have benefited numerous times by using your handy online sorting options. -- I had some technical difficulties accessing your site for awhile, but only on my PC, not my Android devices. But lately that glitch seems to have gone away. Anyway, I will study your information above in the next day or so and will make necessary adjustments. Then let me know if I'm still in error after that is done. -- I look forward to seeing your future work incorporating the New Series.
      Thx again, BackToLuther

      Delete
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  3. Do you have an English translation available of the complete table of contents for either the Walch or Weimar editions (with column/page numbers)? My (eventual) goal is to include the complete list of works in my index; and more immediately, it would help me in properly including the new volumes of the American edition being published by CPH.

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    1. What you see above is all I have. I would dearly love to have such a thing as you contemplate, keyed and linked to especially Walch1 and Walch2 (St. Louis Edition), only secondarily to Weimar Ausgabe. If you make progress on this project, let me know and I will add it to this post which has some popularity.
      I might add that Walther was proud of the progress of the St. Louis Edition in his time. You can search my recent (April 2, 2017) Der Lutheraner Table of Contents for "St. Louis Edition" or "Dr. Martin Luthers Sämmtlichen Schriften" for at least 3 articles. I have thought to translate especially his announcement of "Dreizehnten Band. Zweite Abtheilung" in the June 15, 1884 issue where he also speaks of the "neuen Weimarschen Ausgabe".
      BTL

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    2. Steve B.:
      I might suggest that in your "complete table of contents" you somehow include an index not just to the "American Edition" but also to Lenker's and Klug's English translations of Luther's sermons. These are extensive works that need an easy cross-reference between the German/Latin and all the English translations.
      What prompted this suggestion? I just ran across Pieper's high praise (in Christian Dogmatics I, p. 8, n. 14) for Luther's sermon on John 3:16. He referenced "St. L. XI: 1092 f.") After about an hour of research, I finally figured out this was freely available in Google Books here:
      https://books.google.com/books?id=6lRNAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA350#v=onepage&q&f=false
      It sure would be nice if all of the major translations apart from the American Edition were more easily discoverable.

      Delete
  4. BackToLuther, thanks for your uploads!
    There were no problems with Vol. 1 and 7 from dropbox.com, but the other Vol. from box.com you added under "May 15, 2013" don't seem to start downloading. Can you recheck?

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    1. Manu:
      Sorry for taking sooo long to answer your question. Could you be specific on what volumes you are having difficulty with? I would be happy to correct any broken or malfunctioning links.

      Delete
    2. All is well Luther.
      The volumes you linked in this article where I first wrote you: "Luther Index, online resources for Luther's works" from Saturday, November 17, 2012.
      The volumes are:
      Volume 2 ––>> HERE (140 MB file) Volume 5 ––>> HERE (111 MB file)
      Volume 8 ––>> HERE (109 MB file) Volume 9 ––>> HERE (135 MB file)
      Volume 10––>> HERE (162 MB file) Volume 11––>> HERE (190 MB file)
      Volume 13b––>> HERE (102 MB file) Volume 15––>> HERE (193 MB file)
      Volume 17––>> HERE (169 MB file) Volume 18––>> HERE (147 MB file)
      Volume 20––>> HERE (192 MB file) Volume 22––>> HERE (133 MB file)
      Volume 23––>> HERE (149 MB file)

      box.net reports: "We’re sorry, the preview didn’t load. Please refresh the page."
      I have also read, that box.net changed its URL to app.box.net, but the solution described in follwing link didn't work either:
      https://support.box.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360050973874-I-can-t-download-files-that-were-shared-with-me

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    3. Manu:
      I am glad that you have brought this up. I have noticed my old links to Box files are now acting strangely and so when I get time, I will port them over to Internet Archive where there seems never to be problems. I will give notice here when I get to these.

      Delete
    4. Manu:
      Sorry I was so lazy. I just now went into my Box.com account and figured out how to do the updated links. Please advise me here if you are successful in downloading these. (I won't be bothering to move these over to Archive.org yet.)

      Delete
    5. Download links are valid again, thanks! For volume 23 ("Volume 23––>> HERE (149 MB file)") I noticed, that almost all pages are upside down, maybe you can fix and reupload it.

      Delete

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