Johannes Eck, Bible, Ingolstadt 1550 (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, 2 B.g.cath. 9)

In 1521/1522, Martin Luther (1483–1546) had translated the New Testament into German. By 1534, a complete German translation of the Bible was available. In order to refute this “false” Lutheran Bible and to offer the people a German translation that was acceptable to the old-believers, several editions of Holy Scripture in the vernacular were created by Catholic theologians.

In 1527, Hieronymus Emser (1478–1527) published a corrected revision of Luther’s translation of the New Testament with references to the Latin Vulgate. The German Bible of the Dominican Johann Dietenberger (c.1475–1537), first published in 1534, was also widely disseminated.

At the request of the Bavarian Duke William IV (1493–1550, duke 1508–1550), Johannes Eck (1486–1543) published a translation of the Bible in 1537. To do so, he used Hieronymus Emser’s translation of the New Testament. He translated the Old Testament on the basis of the Vulgate version, but unlike Luther he did not take into account the original Hebrew text of the Old Testament.

The exemplar shown here comes from the second edition of 1550 and was printed in Ingolstadt by the brothers Alexander and Samuel Weissenhorn. The title reads: “Bibel, Alt vnd new Testament, nach dem Text in der hailigen Kirchen gebraucht, durch Doctor Johann Ecken mit fleiß, auf hochteutsch, verdolmetscht” (The Bible, Old and New Testament, Used after the Text in the Holy Churches, Translated by Doctor Johannes Eck Diligently into High German). Nonetheless, the text is written in Upper German and very Bavarian dialect which limited its dissemination beyond this linguistic area.

To the digitised copy