BWC1: Baier-Walther Compendium (BWC), Part 1

    This begins a new series that presents as its culmination a complete translation of the Baier-Walther Compendium (BWC). Why do this since it has already been translated by Rev. Ted Mayes (emeritus) a few years ago? Because neither his translation, nor the promised edited version by his son, Dr. Benjamin T. G. Mayes, has been made available to the wider public, as far as I know, except an important 34-page section on "The Office of Christ", or the "Atonement", from Volume III available on Amazon. Now I have found that it is within my grasp to bring this translated series to full public view.

      As I reviewed the old posts under my label "Baier-Walther Compendium" before writing an Introduction to this series, it seemed that I had already written it, especially in the October 7, 2020 post presenting the Book Review that Prof. E. A. W. Krauss wrote in the August 1879 Lehre und Wehre. Allow me to repeat a notable portion from that Book Review:

But the additions from the fathers which Dr. Walther added to Baier's arguments were chosen with such astonishing dogmatic meticulousness, with such detailed expertise, with such a surprising consideration of what must be brought back into the consciousness of the Church, especially in our time, that the reader has in them, together with Baier's text, not only a complete compendium of the dogmatic work of our Church, but at the same time also an armor [πανοπλία, Eph. 6:11] of the orthodox doctrine with which he can confidently enter the struggle with the proud spirits of modern theology without having to fear defeat. 

Another point that Krauss highlights is the following: "Particularly valuable are the Antitheses added by Dr. Walther…". Having completed the first 2 volumes, I quite agree with Prof. Krauss's judgment. Krauss emphasizes the value of this Walther edition more properly than other reviewers.

      One should also read Paul McCain's 2011 Cyberbrethren blog on these textbooks >> here <<, which includes a review by Robert Preus that speaks more to the weaknesses of Baier's, and Baier's father-in-law Musaeus's, pietistic influence — more reason to study this improved edition that corrects these weaknesses.

      

Translation work:

      I had greatly desired to translate these volumes many years ago, perhaps 20+ years ago, but there were no translation aids for Latin short of hiring a theologian at a very expensive rate. (I tried this.) Even when Google appeared with the capability to translate Latin some years ago, it was somewhat rudimentary (but helpful). 

    Fast forward to today with the advent of AI technology. When a correspondent advised me that Claude AI was able to OCR German black-letter font (Fraktur), I decided to give the AI bots some test pages of the Baier-Walther Compendium (BWC), which has 5 languages, and was stunned to see the quality of translation of all three chat bots that I tested. And they would simultaneously handle all languages contained in the original in the same document! I then determined to clean up the text of the BWC for submission to AI. This took considerable time as I wanted the Greek and Hebrew characters to be as accurate as possible. Google Books was my friend for this as it OCR'd these characters quite correctly. I then fed the cleaned text first to DeepL "Translate files" (paid) which had also added the Latin language recently to their translation engine. (A great advantage of DeepL is that it generally retains the original formatting.) Then I sent it to 3 "Chat bots", ChatGPT, Claude, and Grok (also Google's Gemini). They all did a good job, with some exceptions. So to polish the DeepL translation, I had the 4 other chat bots to compare, and I had a copy of Rev. Ted Mayes work from several years ago. How did the AI machine translators compare to Mayes work? I think better in many instances, rarely not. I found myself referring to Mayes work only infrequently. Even so, it is a shame that the elder Mayes's complete work has not been made available to the general public, as far as I know. (Email me if someone knows different. I'm not checking the comments.)

      Compare the following translations of a paragraph from page 189 of the original Volume 1:

§ 48. Definiri a potest Scriptura s., quod sit Scriptura, b Deo c inspirante, d per prophetas et apostolos e partim Ebraeo, partim Graeco idiomate f consignata, hominem peccatorem g de omnibus, quae creditu ac factu necessaria sunt, h instruens, ut fidem i in Christum consequatur, Deoque reconciliatus, sancte vivat, ac tandem k vitam aeternam Dei beneficio consequatur.

BackToLuther

Rev. Ted Mayes, emeritus

§ 48. It can be defined (a) that the Holy Scripture (b) is inspired (d) by God, (c)   delivered through the prophets and apostles,(e) partly in the Hebrew, partly in the Greek language,(f) to sinful man (g) concerning all things necessary to be believed and done, (h) instructing him, so that he may obtain faith (i) in Christ, and, being reconciled to God, may live a holy life, and at last (k) obtain eternal life by the grace of God.

§ 48.  Holy Scripture is able to be defined,a that it is Scripture,b inspiredd by God,c recorded idiomaticallyf through the prophets and the apostles,e partly in Hebrew, partly in Greeks, to human sinnersg about all things, which are necessary for believing and doing,h equipping, so that they obtain faithi in Christ, are reconciled to God, live a sanctified life, and at lengthk obtain eternal life by the gift of God.

Scholars may demote the value of my work, but I would wonder that they themselves are already using AI extensively. I compared all three chat bots (and Gemini) with the DeepL version and made many corrections as needed. Over 5 weeks have been spent on the first volume. Many more for the later volumes. Of course errors will remain, but again, I wonder that this would not be far from the quality of an edited version by Dr. Benjamin Mayes of his father's work. Who knows, maybe better.

      Another benefit of my translation is that hyperlinks were added for page references. Every page follows the original page, so one can immediately compare the translation with its original counterpart by clicking on the page number. Also a few references were linked to Walther's sources. Along with these links, I have included 30 pages of an introductory biography, a dedicatory address to Duke Frederick, and a short essay by Baier not included in the elder Mayes' work.

      In the next Part BWC1a, we begin by offering a few "Notable Quotes" that I highlighted while translating the first volume.

- - - - - - - -  Table of Contents  - - - - - - - - 
BWC1: This post, Introduction
   BWC1a: Piety not enough; Reason "to be taken captive"; Theology not "self-awareness of the Church"

   BWC1b: Non-fundamental doctrines, Antichrist; Papists made Luther "a fairly good theologian"

   BWC1c: Scripture sufficient, Tradition not needed; Internal Testimony, TSSI, etc.; Apocrypha; Koran
   BWC1d: Sacraments & Word differ, i.e. the Word remains forever; Papist: "Scripture is like a wax nose"
BWC2a: Volume II: Trinity explained, the Psalms are made clear, .
   BWC2b: Trinity; Creation
   BWC2c: Creation; Angels
   BWC2d: Image of God; Providence; Eternal Blessedness
   BWC2e: Eternal Blessedness; Eternal Damnation

   BWC2f: Temporal Death; Resurrection of the Dead
   BWC2g: Last Judgment

   BWC2h: Actual Sins; full downloads for Volume 2

BWC3a: Vol. III(A): Grace; "God did not owe it, man could not do it"

   BWC3b:  Jesus Christ, His Person

   BWC3c:  "A divine humanity, a human divinity"

   BWC3d: "not for some only, but for all and every one"

   BWC3e:  Faith in Christ; sola scriptura; "true inward testimony" of Holy Spirit

   BWC3f: Regeneration and Conversion

   BWC3g: Justification: "on this article stands everything that we teach"

   BWC3h:  "justification takes place through the Word"

   BWC3i: Trent blasphemes Faith Alone; Huber's error

   BWC3j:  Renewal/Good Works; supererogation; good intentions: pilgrimages, lit candles, rosaries

   BWC3k: Law and Gospel I: Hearing the Word not better than reading; self-love; usury

   BWC3l: Law and Gospel II: Proper Distinction, by Luther and Walther

BWC3m: Vol. III(B): Sacraments, Predestination, Church & Ministry, Society

   BWC3n: 

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   BWC3s: 

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   BWC3x: