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Showing posts with label German language. Show all posts
Showing posts with label German language. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 15, 2021

Language 2: Learn English! (& keep German) – Walther

           This continues from Part 1. Lest anyone thinks that these German American Lutherans thought themselves too high in their German pedestal, a few months after the exhortation to preserve the German language came a short blurb, surely by editor Walther, that exhorted these Germans to learn English.  However it ended with a more "sacred duty". From Der Lutheraner, vol. 11 (Feb. 13, 1855), p. 103:
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Luther's exhortation to learn to speak English 

“I do not think much of those,” Luther writes, “who are so fond of only one language and despise all others. For I would gladly raise up such youth and people who could be of use to Christ and speak with the people also in foreign lands” 

(i.e., not only about business matters, as many Christians here [in America], even young immigrants, do not get any further in English); 

“that it may not happen to us as it did to the Waldensians in Bohemia [like Americans!], who have so caught their faith in their own language that they cannot speak intelligibly and clearly with anyone, unless they first learn their language. This is not what the Holy Spirit did in the beginning; He did not wait for all the world to come to Jerusalem and learn the [Hebrew] language, but gave all kinds of tongues for preaching, so that the apostles could speak wherever they went. I would rather follow this example; and it is also right that the youth should practice many languages: who knows how God will use them in time? For this purpose also the schools are endowed.” ("Deutsche Messe und Ordnung des Gottesdienstes von 1526". Tom. Hal. X, 279.) [“The German Mass and Order of Service”, AE 53, 51-90, ~ p. 57]  

Hereby, however, we by no means want to give the impression to those Germans who put their mother tongue so low in relation to English that they can hardly understand it anymore and even less speak it properly. If a German Lutheran is to learn English in order to be able to serve his neighbors in earthly and spiritual matters, it is of course for his own sake an even more sacred duty to preserve the jewel of the German language. For what language has the treasures of divine scholarship that German has

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      Walther gives the last best answer for American Lutherans – know both languages, English and German. And make sure you do not lose the German language! — We see now how Satan worked his purpose through two World Wars – killing the German language, not only in America, but around the world.

Saturday, June 12, 2021

Language 1: Preserve the German among our youth (Part 1 of 2)

      Although I have blogged several times regarding the loss of the German language among Missouri Synod Lutherans, another article came to my attention from an unknown author to Der Lutheraner in 1854 that made me pause and reflect even more on this tragedy.  When I correspond with Germans, I invariably let them know how much I envy them because… they know German! … and I don't.  And the following article again points out just how much the American Lutherans have lost in the loss of this language, so much so that it can bring tears to my eyes. — From Der Lutheraner, vol 11, no. 5 (Oct. 24, 1854), p. 34-35: 
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What can we do to preserve the German language among our youth? 

 

Whatever the various opinions and expectations of the future of the German language in America, it is agreed among us that we, German Lutherans, should make every effort to preserve the mother tongue for our children and grandchildren. While the fear of the gradual extinction of German may not be without reason, and the writer of these lines himself shares this fear, we are undoubtedly agreed that we who are alive now must do everything in our power to postpone this calamitous epoch into as distant a future as possible. If there were no other reason for this, it would already be sufficient, because the German language indisputably contains the greatest treasures of Christian, healthy literature [Page 35] that only a people of recent times has to show. I am not, of course, thinking of the German literature of more recent times, which, under God's heavy judgments, has become a canal of apostasy and wickedness of recent times, and should we speak of this, we should only wish that it had never found its way across the sea to America. We have rather in mind the German literature of the old age, namely of the Reformation, to which no other of European Christianity can be placed side by sideWhat are all the English ascetic writings of [Thomas] Goodwin, [Richard] Baxter, [John] Bunyan, etc., against such a book as Luther's House- and Church Postils or [Christian] Scriver's Treasure of Souls [Seelenschatz]? or what is all the hymnological literature of England against a single old hymnal of the Lutheran ChurchIf our children forget their mother tongue, the English language in which the Lutheran Church at present has almost no literature, offers them not the poorest substitute for it. And where did the decline of the Lutheran Church in America come from? Did it not come largely from ignorance of the German language, whereby the rising generation fell into the hands of the English churches? The writer of this has heard it himself from the mouth of a grandson of one of the first German Lutheran preachers in America that ignorance of the German language became the cause of his joining the English Episcopal Church.

But what can we do? Without a doubt, we must start with our youth and lay the foundation in school. German Lutheran parents should never speak other than good German with their children in their family circle. Unfortunately, many Germans are the foolish monkeys of foreigners; they think that nothing is decent and distinguished enough if it is not put on an English footing. Understanding Germans should also show a manly sobriety in this and, although far from pedantic German pomposity, should not be ashamed of their German origin, especially in the language. Furthermore, the German language should be cultivated in our congregational schools with even greater care than is necessary in the old fatherland, so that a student learns to speak and write it with ease and the greatest possible elegance and correctness. Of course, a half-stumbling learning of German cannot arouse a preference for German. Furthermore, our pupils should be familiarized at an early age with good samples of German writers of old and new times in a suitable selection. The introduction of good German reading books for schools serves this purpose. I would remind you of Wackernagel's and Sartorius's excellent reading books, as well as the reading book edited by the North German Association, one or the other of which should not be lacking in sufficient supply in any of our schools. In order to acquire a taste for the German language, as well as a skill in reading, it is not sufficient to use only the Bible or Hübner's Histories as reading books. Finally, each of our schools should, wherever possible, have a small, selected school library, from which students could take home a book every week as a reward for their diligence and good behavior. It is hard to believe how happy children are about this, how eagerly they read, how much idleness and spoiling they are protected from, how much their older brothers and sisters, even their parents, enjoy having the beautiful children's stories read to them during the long winter evenings, and how this promotes a close, intimate family life. Praise God! The newer times are becoming richer and richer in good children's writings that can be safely given to children. Some of Schmidt's, Barth's, Stöber's, Schubart's, and above all Redenbacher's writings provide excellent material for a school library; this would gradually be expanded by good travel descriptions, such as the older ones by Harnisch and the newer ones by Grube, or by children's writings on natural history, world history and church history. The children would gladly contribute their cents, which they otherwise easily spend on candy, if they have the prospect of soon getting another new book to read. Attention cannot be drawn seriously enough to the establishment of such school libraries. If there are some passages in some of these books for young people that do not contain proofs, a Christian teacher will know how to make them harmless by correcting them in time and thereby awaken and exercise the gift of examination in the young Christians.

But over and above this, it seems to us that the least means of not extinguishing the love of the German language in our youth is to give them at the same time the most ample opportunity to learn the English language from the bottom up. If one were to try to keep the English language away from the child's field of vision, one would produce the direct opposite of love for the mother tongue. The more unreservedly the children are introduced to the English language, the more soberly they will naturally weigh both languages, and the more thoroughly they become acquainted with both languages, the more joyfully they will prefer the originality of the German language to the English language, which is colorfully adorned with foreign writings [Federn].

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      Concordia Publishing House may be both credited and blamed for the language situation.  It has produced several English translations of Old German Lutheran writings, but it has been culpable for the lack of the same in many cases. When I was born in 1952, the language transformation was largely over and I heard very little of German speaking in our congregation and among my own older relatives.
      The world will point to the great loss of life in the two World Wars of the 20th Century, but I point to the loss of the German language among the Lutherans of America as their greatest lost.  — And that is one of the main reasons for this blog, to bring back the German writings of the fathers of the Old Missouri Synod, from the time before English became dominant.  For it is they, the Missourian German Lutherans, who can be credited for taking us Back To Luther. — In the next Part 2, we hear another exhortation in the same volume (p. 103), but this time it was for the English language.

Tuesday, April 13, 2021

Walther on loss of German language by American Lutherans

      I have blogged numerous times on this subject, but those blogs used Franz Pieper's comments.  However, I discovered that Walther lamented the loss of the German language even in 1874 before the 2 World Wars!  Walther references the Mennonite emigration from Russia. One may read some history of those people in Wikipedia.  Walther comments in Der Lutheraner, vol. 30 (1874), p. 150, – translation by BTL: 
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German Mother Tongue. The Mennonites who are now immigrating from Russia, where their forefathers emigrated from Germany in the last century, speak German fluently in addition to Russian, to the astonishment of the Germans here. When the reporter of a newspaper expressed his astonishment at this, a man of about sixty said: “Surely we will not forget our mother tongue?” — Thus speaks a Mennonite, to whom his religion cannot make the German language particularly valuable, since the number of Mennonite writings in our language is very small; what a disgrace it is, therefore, for many local German Lutherans, who not only look on indifferently as their children lose their mother tongue, but, who even do everything that their children must lose it, by sending them, instead of German, to English schools!     W. [Walther]”

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      Walther lamented that Lutherans were less rigorous in retaining their "mother tongue" than the Mennonites.  In hindsight we can see that Walther was correct to promote the German language, because the loss of the language by the descendents in the 20th Century has devastated theological and devotional reading.  And 2 World Wars have made any return to German to be practically impossible, except for the few who choose this language.  Thank God for the Internet that has given us tools to not only access the old German Lutheran writings, but also to translate them into our new "mother tongue" – English.  How the Lord has answered my prayer of 25 years ago, that I might be able to read directly from our German Lutheran forefathers.

Wednesday, June 3, 2020

1931-06-03 † F Pieper; German language in America?

Franz Pieper, about 1926; † June 3, 1931 †
      Today, June 3, 2020, marks the 89th anniversary of Dr. Franz Pieper's "Heimgang" or "going home".  I would mark this with an English translation of a short blurb written 100 years ago.  Although it was not signed "F. P.", yet it well expresses Pieper's thought. The timing of it is the period of adjustment immediately after World War I,  for Germany and America.  It appeared in volume 66 of Lehre und Wehre, p. 92:
      German language instruction in secondary schools in the United States. At the Annual Convention of the Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools of the Southern States, held in Louisville, Ky., in December of last year [1919], several representatives expressed the view that the German language should be taught in American universities, colleges and higher education institutions, but not in the graduate schools. Prof. Charles G. Maphis of the state University of Georgia stated that it would be folly to expel the German language from the universities and colleges of this country because then “we would not understand what Germany is doing in the field of science.” 
The writer was perceptive about Prof. Maphis's motive for promoting the German language in America – only for science.  This shows that American academia knew that Germany was one of the leaders in the technological sciences at that time.  And it was to a German scientist, Wernher von Braun, that America later turned in it's quest for space exploration.
      But Prof. Maphis leaves out, for whatever reason, the field of theology.  Wasn't the language of Martin Luther German?  We note that the writing did not make a comment against Prof. Maphis.  This may have been in the hope that the German language, after World War I, might gain re-acceptance again in America, even if only for the reason of… science. — We continue our English translation of the German language book The History of the Missouri Synod, 1838-1884 in the next Part 4b.  Why?  Because American Lutherans, like me, do not know the German language, and so are largely cut off from the heritage of Martin Luther.

Monday, August 24, 2015

Dogmatik Index- Eckhardt’s Foreword - Part 2 (delightful pearls and diamonds)

      This continues from Part 1 regarding Franz Pieper's original German textbook series Christliche Dogmatik and its Index. — Who was Ernst Eckhardt?  He gives us a picture of this work of his in his Foreword.  The dear Eckhardt recognized the greatness of Pieper's work and gives a wonderful account of this.  I have translated it and present it in the following.  Highlightling is mine.
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Foreword.
(by Ernst Eckhardt)
If one wants to go through a commercial building, you usually get a guide. If you want to visit a larger city to some extent, you achieve your goal faster when you have a guide. This book is intended to be a guide, a guide through Dr. F. Pieper’s Christliche Dogmatik.
In our Synod, a large mass books, treatises and writings have been printed since its beginning, but only a few greater works – Dr. Pieper’s Christliche Dogmatik is one most outstanding among them. It is a mature fruit of the life work of the dogmatist of the Missouri Synod.  One  notices on every page of the book how diligently and carefully the author has worked through and tested the rich material, how he controls from all sides the whole dogmatic substance, how carefully he tries to bring the teaching of Scripture to a clear and also intimately warm representation – a gift the author has in particular.  Especially at a time in which a change of language is taking place in our Synod, Dr. Pieper has once again clearly testified to the German identity of the world what the Missouri Synod believes, teaches, and confesses.  It will probably be the last major work of its kind in the German language.  
The author of this triple index has not "studied" Dr. Pieper’s Christliche Dogmatik. This includes at least a full year. There is a difference between studying and indexing.  Whoever makes the object of God's nature a special study, observes every field, every house, every striking tree, every excellent flower; one who merely indexes, flies over it in an airship.  When he puts an index to a dogmatic theology, he is content to find out that on a certain page this or that teaching point has been treated, and can skip scriptural proof, quotes, parables, beautiful pictures etc.  In spite of this brief overview, yet we found on all pages delightful pearls and diamonds which we have tried to express in the Index.  We wondered at the great extent to which the Scripture was cited everywhere as evidence for all teachings, and therefore felt the need to attach a directory of all treated Scripture passages.  We have been surprised at the knowledge of literature by the author of this Dogmatik who is well-informed in all possible writings impacting in this field of the Church Fathers, dogmatists, exegetes and heretics as no one else has in the Synod, so that it became necessary to make a special index on quotations or a name index.  If a pastor wants to know when preparing a sermon or a conference work what Dr. Pieper wrote in his Dogmatics over a certain point of doctrine, or if he is looking for a special quote or an interpretation of a Bible passage to him this book will be for him a roadmap which leads him quickly to the goal.
We cannot yet close without a few words pointing to the difficulty that confronted us in drawing up of such an index, the difficulty of specifying the content of a quotation in as few words as possible and yet to bring expression of the matter clearly and dogmatically correct.  This often requires an acquaintance with the writings of the ancients, with their whole teaching presentation, with the disputes, etc., which we unfortunately do not have.   Perhaps now and then just the words which would be necessary to better understand the matter were omitted.  We feel and sense our weakness and clumsiness. How dissatisfactory, how small and low our work appears to us!  However, we console ourselves with the fact that probably everywhere enough has been given to find a quotation in the Dogmatik, and that our work, in spite of its imperfections, still provides a not insignificant service to the pastors.         E. Eckhardt.
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Again, who was Ernst Eckhardt?  He was better known for his greater work, his "Reallexicon" which was a massive index (8 volumes, Google Books, HathiTrust) of almost all of old Missouri writings and teachings, also for the Synodical Conference.  I still wonder why Concordia Publishing was not the publisher of Eckhardt's greater work (Success Printing, St. Louis??).  Hmmm... Eckhardt's lament of
"How dissatisfactory, how small and low our work appears to us!"
reminds me of the wonderful remark of Pastor Mark Zarling of the Wisconsin Synod who said the following to preface his essay "Stand in Awe of Justification":
"It is not without some trepidation that this paper is presented. I certainly must confess, 'Who is sufficient for these things?"
      Somewhere the later Prof. Theodore Graebner scoffed at Eckhardt's indexing work, but we see now that "Graebner's scorn" becomes Eckhardt's praise.  How so?  Because Eckhardt "found on all pages delightful pearls and diamonds", spiritual gems.  —  In a private response to my blog about 3 years ago, an ELCA pastor called me the derogatory term "Franzie baby"!  May I continue to earn that term from all of "Lutheran" pastors of the ELCA today... just as Ernst Eckhardt earned the scorn of Theodore Graebner because Eckhardt was quite sufficient for his wonderful "roadmap" to old Missouri, and to "the life work of the dogmatist of the Missouri Synod"... Franz Pieper! —
      Now what did I find in Eckhardt's Index of Pieper that was omitted in the English version published in 1957?  See the next Part 3...

Sunday, September 29, 2013

Triglotta– Pieper- English language? (4e); Amish analogy

This continues from Part 4d reviewing the newly available book Concordia Triglotta from CPH. (See Table of Contents here)  This Part 4e continues my translation of Franz Pieper's essay on the appearance of the original book in 1921.  Pieper had just beautifully defended against the attacks of German theologians, who claimed differences between Martin Luther and the Lutheran Confessions, when he opened up the topic of languages.

Pieper's essay is indented. My interspersed comments are in green
Underlining is in the original.  Highlighting is mine. 
Hyperlinks added including page links to original essay in Google Books.
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"Concordia Triglotta"
by Franz Pieper
Lehre und Wehre, vol. 67 (1921), pgs 297-301
(continued from Part 4d)

German?  English?  Which language to choose?  Pieper proceeds...

The fact that the Triglotta also presents the English text of the Lutheran Confessions besides the Latin and German, should not draw the accusation that we want to hastily turn the American Lutheran Church into an English oneWe hold, as it befits a Synod in principle, that the Church of God does not serve the language, but the language is to serve the Church.  We engage ourselves in each language which serves the doctrines of the Gospel.  In India we speak Indian, in China, Chinese.  Here in America we speak German where one understands German the best, English where the English language is understood the best or is preferred.  We also do not refuse, as everyone knows, to speak in some Slavic languages.  We so-called Missourians are now here in America, where English has taken root for a long time as the national language.  So we owe our wonderful Lutheran confessional writings in English to both those within and those outside the Lutheran Church.

A careful reading of this paragraph reveals that there were some in the old (German) Missouri Synod who resisted the changeover from German to English for the wrong reason... perhaps nationalism. Pieper squashes this thought with the imperative that 
"the Church of God does not serve the language, but the language is to serve the Church"
The question might then be: 
"Why did the old (German) Missouri Synod hang on to the German language so long in America?"
Pieper answered that question above and elsewhere by saying that the language to use is the "language which serves the doctrines of the Gospel."  Two World Wars have sadly pushed this question far too quickly.  And so the German language for me, a full German descendant, is totally foreign...  the language of Luther and the Reformation is outside my comprehension, and so probably for most of today's American Lutheran pastors... and probably so even for many of the Lutheran teachers.  Thank God the old (German) Missouri Synod produced the Concordia Triglotta (with an authoritative English translation) before the old Missouri was superseded by today's LC-MS.  And thank God they produced all 3 languages synchronized in 3 parallel columns so one can see, compare, and reference the old original languages.  

There is a religious group today that is partially analogous to the old (German) Missouri Synod – the Amish, and others like them – the "old order" societies.  Along with maintaining the old farming practices, they maintain the old German language among themselves.  One of their stated reasons for maintaining a separation from modern society is to maintain separation from "the English".  On the face of it, they have been successful, and so modern society by the millions go to visit their areas to get a taste of the "old ways".  Their lifestyle is now so popular that the Discovery Channel even attempts to cash in with a sensationalistic depiction of them ("Amish Mafia"), a depiction that is widely discredited.  One wonders that if the German language was still evident in today's LC-MS in certain areas of America, the Discovery Channel would also falsely depict them.  It is sad for me that the Amish, although they maintain separation from "the English", have separated from the Lutheran Reformation, and so became a sect, a sect that went back to a doctrine of works.  But I envy them in this respect, that they largely understand the German language.  Hmmm...  I wonder if they use Luther's translation of the Bible in the German language?

Pieper then ends his essay on the physical aspects of the book itself:



As for the exterior features of the Concordia Triglotta, our Concordia Publishing House has particularly succeeded this time in providing a suitable dress for the "golden Concordia".       
F.[ranz] P.[ieper]



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The original Concordia Triglotta was hardback whereas today's CPH version is "Print on Demand" paperback (2-4 weeks delivery)...  much cheaper to produce in smaller volumes.  I would not fault CPH for producing it this way if it allows a wider audience to purchase the book.  But a $70 price tag would rather present a barrier to a purchase... something they seemingly would have attempted to avoid.  So I suggest the reader look for used copies of the older version on Amazon or elsewhere first.  But if none are available, I recommend purchasing this new one because it is the "gold standard", the "golden Concordia".  Then one will understand the Reformation... the Lutheran Reformation, from the Reformation century, ... then one will understand Martin Luther.

May Pieper's introductory essay serve as today's introduction to the newly available Concordia Triglotta, even if this new book lacks Bente's "Historical Introductions" (free version here).  And if today's CPH has added its own introduction and attempted to do a better job than Pieper, may the reader ignore it and do what Pieper says:
"Just read the Confessions, check their Scripture evidence and convince yourself..."
In the next Part 5a of this series, I begin to review the essay by Prof. Roland Ziegler concerning the Book of Concord... and a detractor of the old Missouri Synod.

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

St. Louis Edition of Luther's (German) Writings – complete text

****  2022-07-10: The St. Louis Edition is now available in an English translation here. For English readers this should be the focus of their downloading first.  ****
[2022-05-29: updated vol. 23; 2022-03-22: adding links to English version of Der Lutheraner reviews of each volume; 2021-12-10: began adding listings for English translations in Archive.org2021-12-09: added publication dates in Der Lutheraner column; 2021-02-10: added link to 1879 subscription notice in table below; 2018-09-15: added links to several more uploaded scanned volumes in Archive.org in table below; 2017-04-30: updated all HathiTrust links -- 2 volumes added; added 2 Google Books links; 2017-04-21: Updated Table with links to Der Lutheraner announcements]
Because the publishings of Luther, Walther, and Pieper were printed in the old German fraktur font, it has been extremely difficult to get the text into an electronic form for republishing in our digital/Internet age.  It appeared that even the great digitizers of the world's knowledge, Google Books, was not going to get the fraktur writings correct since all the 10 volumes of the St. Louis Edition on Archive.org have gibberish for the OCR'd text files.   But I have recently discovered 2 surprises:

1) First surprise: I discovered that HathiTrust has already provided almost all the OCR'd text of all but 2 volumes of the 25-volume series of the St. Louis Edition of Luther's works, the so-called 2nd Walch edition or W(2).  The caveats to this are:
  • HathiTrust does not provide a download link of the full text, only page-by-page text. But this allows copy-and-paste of single page text.
  • the OCR'd text on the "Plain Text" button correctly recognizes the text of old fraktur German ("black letter", "gothic"), but not Latin, Greek or Hebrew which are shown as gibberish.  The error rate on the fraktur recognition is fairly good but the text appears to not have been verified by a human.
2) The second surprise: After poking around the confusing search methods and arrangements in Google Books, I discovered that they too have many volumes of correctly recognized OCR'd fraktur plain text!... 14 volumes (out of 25) to date.

This is very significant because ever since the Third Reich decree to end all printing in the fraktur font in 1941, modern knowledge of older German writings were effectively cutoff.  Coupled with the drive by the new (English) LC-MS to sweep away all vestiges of the German language, the descendants of the old (German) Missouri Synod (like me) have been cut off from their heritage in the writings of Luther, Walther, and Pieper... except for some select English translations.

So what does this mean for English language readers, readers (like me) who are so dependent on the available translations of Luther, Walther, and Pieper?   It means that almost all of Luther's works in German can now be more easily accessed for machine translation via Google Translate and other translation tools.  Of course this still requires some work:
  1. Untranslated words must be checked for occasional mis-spellings from mis-recognized letters by comparing to scanned image of the page
  2. Correcting words with errors
  3. Re-translating text
I have previously provided complete scanned images of the St. Louis Edition here.  I am updating that post with all the research from this survey.  These scanned images will still be necessary for anyone making use of these text files due to the remaining errors (~1%) still causing some confusion.

So now I present this table with hyperlinks for reference for online availability of the
St. Louis Edition of Luther's Works
or
Dr. Martin Luthers Sämmtliche Schriften  

Volume

Der Lutheraner announcement
Google Books?
Plain Text?
editions:YIGSJf7E28IC 
---
---
Archive.org
German / English



DL35 p 176 subscription notice
(Pieper's essay - DL63, p. 403 ff.


01
DL36 p 176 -W (1880-11-15)

02
DL37 p 113 -W (1881-08-01)
* YES *

03
DL50 p 202 - (1894-11-20)
04
DL51 p 221 - (1895-12-31)
snippet; no
05
DL52 p 214 - (1896-12-15)
snippet; no





06
DL53 p 198 - (1897-11-16)
snippet; no
07
 * YES *
DL47 p 195 - (1891-12-08)
snippet; no
08
DL48 p 199 - (1892-12-06)
* YES *

09
DL49 p 188 - (1893-11-21)
snippet; no
10
DL41 p 105 [EN]-W (1885-07-15)






11
DL38 p. 81 -W (1882-06-01)
12
DL39, p.64, 80 - (1883-04-15)
13-1
* YES *
DL39 p 104 -W (1883-07-01)
13-2
DL40 p 96 -W (1884-06-15)
no; no

14
DL54 p 206 - (1898-11-15)





15
DL55 p 218 - (1899-11-28)
snippet; no
16
DL56 p 390 - (1900-12-11)
17
DL57 p 373 - (1901-11-26)
snippet; no
18
DL44 p 185 - (1888-11-20)

19
DL45 p 196 - (1889-12-03)





20
DL46 p 205 - (1890-12-16)

21a
DL59 p 167 - (1903-05-26)
yes  /  YES
21b
DL60 p 326 - (1904-10-11)
22
DL43 p 125 - (1887-08-01)

23
DL66 p 197 (G.St. review) - (1910-06-28); DL66 p 224


(Last updated December 10, 2021; thanks to Finn B. Andersen for assistance on work for archive.org!)
This table will be updated with time as HathiTrust and Google Books update their holdings.
April 17, 2014 – Addendum:  Erlanger Edition of Luther's Works -> here (HathiTrust).

For reference on how to use Google Books and Google Translate to read the St. Louis Edition in English now, see the following diagram sequence of screenshots from Google Chrome browser with annotations (PDF image here, PNG image here): [2021-12-10: Now see above table for much better English translations by DeepL.]


Please note the PDF image must be viewed in a PDF viewer that shows annotations... not all viewers do this – I noticed my Firefox viewer did not show annotations.  If in doubt, download the PNG image.

Now we are not completely tied to the American Edition – Luther's Works and it's critical editors who more often than not do not get the spiritual message of Luther.  The editors of the St. Louis Edition, the old (German) Missouri Synod, understood Martin Luther far more than today's modern scholars.

But what about the other publishings of Lehre und Wehre and Der Lutheraner?  Are they becoming available too?  I will begin to address these in the next post.

[See also this earlier blog post for another listing of the St. Louis Edition with downloads of my own scans of this series.] [archived here]