Men on the moon or… where? (young Walther)

[2021-03-22: see Der Lutheraner, vol. 42 (1886), p. 46 for Walther's original German account.]

      A story I read in Polack's The Story of. C.F.W. Walther (1935), p. 21-22, struck me as evidence of Walther's later early firmness in defending against the encroachment of “Science” in matters of religion:

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      “When I was still tutor in Kahla in 1834, I occasionally disputed with my principal on the question whether everything in the Bible is trustworthy, divine truth. My principal was not at all antagonistic to Christianity, but in his youth he had imbibed many rationalistic ideas, which had not been entirely eradicated. He held, for instance, that what the Bible said about the stars was only the personal opinion of Moses and had not been inspired by the Holy Spirit. He therefore believed that the stars were not mere luminous bodies, but inhabited by similar creatures as our earth. My efforts to change his mind were in vain.


One day he came into my room with a beaming countenance, holding a newspaper in his hands, and said: ’My dear Candidate, you are beaten. I have just read in this paper that the great astronomer Herschel, Jr., who went to Africa at the beginning of this year, has by means of a huge telescope discovered manlike creatures on the moon. Read it for yourself.’  I did so, and the paper actually contained the account as told by my principal. But I then replied:

'Beg pardon, my dear principal, but I hope you do not believe that? Indeed, I declare that, if I myself would look through that telescope and see manlike creatures running around on the moon, I should not believe it; I should hold that these ostensible human beings must be in the telescope.’ 

Walther's Biblical Astronomy 

My principal thereupon said: ’I fully realize that nothing can be done with you!’ and impatiently left the room.”
      Walther then relates that about a half year later the newspaper retracted the article because it had been prepared by an impostor as a hoax and that the famous Herschel had never written it!

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      That Walther could point to a later retraction of the story (the Great Moon Hoax) in no way takes away from his original stand... Walther stood 100% on the Holy Scriptures as the unbreakable, inviolable, inerrant, ultimate Truth.  He later confirmed this in America in 1868 when he counseled the Eastern District pastors to believe the Bible, not Copernicanism.