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Martin Luther’s Use of Blended Hebrew and German Idioms in His Translation of the Hebrew Bible

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 October 2020

Andrew J. Niggemann
Andrew J. Niggemann*
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge; ajn45@cantab.net
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Abstract

This article investigates an uncharted facet of Martin Luther’s Hebrew translation method. It is one of the more fascinating aspects of his translation, which demonstrates both the complexity of how he translated Hebrew and the lasting impact of the Hebrew on his German, neither of which has been fully appreciated by scholars. This article demonstrates how he sometimes blended Hebrew and German idioms in his translation of the Hebrew Bible, specifically in the Minor Prophets. It further shows how he used this translation method to convey various linguistic features of the Hebrew language to his German audience. Finally, it shows how this has a number of important implications for Luther studies, Hebrew and German linguistics, and medieval and early modern history.

Keywords

Martin LutherHebrewGermanBibletranslation
Type
Articles
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Harvard Theological Review , Volume 113 , Issue 4 , October 2020 , pp. 483 - 497
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Copyright
© President and Fellows of Harvard College, 2020

Introduction

For all of the scholarly attention over the past several decades to Martin Luther’s Hebrew Bible translation, scholars have given very little depth of consideration to his specific translations, instead relying on high-level appraisals of a general methodology that he employed. Normally, scholars reduce this consideration to one of two options: whether he typically employed a “literal” translation—that is, based on the lexicon meaning of the Hebrew—or a dynamic equivalent—that is, an interpretative translation that explained the Hebrew for the German reader.Footnote 1 This is so for all but a relatively small set of examples that are recycled in book after book, usually in a small subsection of a chapter on one of various broader topics concerning Luther’s theology or his life.Footnote 2 Moreover, these examples are almost exclusively limited to the Psalms.Footnote 3

This approach has led to two major shortcomings in Luther scholarship. First, it fails to grasp fully the diversity of his Hebrew hermeneutic. Second, it overlooks the extent to which Hebrew influenced his German. The Hebrew language left far more of an imprint on Luther’s German Bible, and in a far more diverse manner, than scholars have appreciated to date.Footnote 4 Moving beyond this beaten path of scholarly focus can help to address these gaps and, consequently, can provide scholars with a much richer understanding of his German Bible translation and the many influences upon it.

This article will investigate one of the more fascinating aspects of Luther’s translation which demonstrates both the complexity of how he translated Hebrew and the lasting impact of the Hebrew on his German. It will show how he sometimes blended Hebrew and German idioms in his translation of the Hebrew Bible, specifically in the Minor Prophets.Footnote 5 Because the prophetical books contain a massive number of figures of speech, they are an ideal place to find examples of this method of his.Footnote 6 The following analysis will examine three different ways in which Luther mixed Hebrew and German in his Deutsche Bibel, where he identified the Hebrew as some type of idiom or figure of speech. It will further show how he used this translation method to convey various linguistic features of the Hebrew language to his German audience. Finally, it will show how this research has a number of important implications for Luther studies, Hebrew and German linguistics, and medieval and early modern history.

Blend of Hebrew Idiom and German Idiom

When Luther identified a particular word, phrase, or sentence as idiomatic Hebrew, he often would identify a corresponding German idiom that he believed had a similar meaning. He explained these associations in his lectures, commentaries, and biblical glosses and during the revision meetings that he periodically convened with his translation team.Footnote 7 Rather than choose between 1) a literal rendering of the Hebrew idiom, which often would be incomprehensible to the native German reader, and 2) a German idiom, which the German reader would understand but which would also lose certain attributes of the Hebrew which Luther felt were important to the meaning of the text (i.e., intensity, alliteration, etc.), in certain instances he chose a different option. He would fuse complete Hebrew and German idioms, or segments of them, creating a modified German idiom for his Deutsche Bibel. One of the most sophisticated tools he used in his Bible translation, this phenomenon demonstrates the direct influence of the Hebrew on Luther’s German translation.

An excellent example of this method appears in his interpretation of Amos 2:13, which he addressed in his lectures:

This is a Hebrew figure of speech. It is as if he were saying: “Just as a cart groans beneath its load of straw, so I shall cause you to groan beneath the Assyrian chariots. That is, you will groan as you are crushed by the great burden and hardship. You who are so proud and haughty now will again be oppressed.” This is what he means by saying “beneath you.” It is an expression we cannot translate suitably in Latin.Footnote 8

Luther was remarking on הִנֵּה אָנֹכִי מֵעִיק תַּחְתֵּיכֶם (hinnēh ʾānōḵî mēʿîq taḥtêḵem, “Behold, I will cause tottering, pressing underneath you”), a Hebraism that Rashi rendered, “I will oppress your dwelling place.”Footnote 9 Rashi is one of the great medieval Jewish commentators who influenced many of the Christian commentators and lexicographers on whom Luther relied for his Hebrew translation, including Nicholas of Lyra and Johannes Reuchlin. Luther translated this in the Deutsche Bibel as Sihe, ich wils vnter euch kirren machen (“Look, I will make it groan underneath you,” which also can be rendered, “I will make it crazy underneath you” or “I will make it confused, uncertain underneath you”).Footnote 10 Kirren machen is a Germanism that, while it indeed means “to make someone groan or scream,” also means, more figuratively, “to tame or subdue someone,” “to bring someone to his or her knees,” “to disturb someone,” “to make someone nervous or uncertain,” or “to drive someone crazy.”Footnote 11 He took that German idiom and inserted it into the broader Hebrew sentence, transforming the Hebrew idiom to a Hebrew-German composite.

Original Hebrew Idiom:

הִנֵּה אָנֹכִי מֵעִיק תַּחְתֵּיכֶם (hinnēh ʾānōḵî mēʿîq taḥtêḵem, “Behold, I will cause tottering underneath you”)

Original German Idiom:

kirren machen (“to tame someone,” “to bring someone to his or her knees,” “to drive someone crazy”)

Luther’s Blended Idiom:

Sihe, ich wils vnter euch kirren machen (“Look, I will make it crazy underneath you”; “I will bring you to your knees, I will tame you”; “I will make the ground underneath you uncertain”)

His new German idiom was a fusion of the German and Hebrew—neither fully literal, nor fully interpretative, nor an unadulterated German idiom rendering of the Hebrew. This is a lucid example of the direct influence of the obscure Hebrew figure of speech on his use of the German idiom in the Deutsche Bibel. Moreover, it is one of many examples of his variable and multifaceted handling of Hebrew figures of speech.Footnote 12 He utilized this hermeneutical tool, in this instance, to replicate the semantic intensity that he saw as innate to the Hebrew figure of speech.Footnote 13 This is a persistent theme in Luther’s Hebrew translation—he called attention to the distinctive energy, expressiveness, and power of Hebrew in contrast to Latin and German over and over again in his reflections upon the books of the Hebrew Bible, and especially upon the Minor Prophets. For him, though, this semantic intensity was more than an aesthetic feature of Hebrew. It was an essential part of the meaning of the words. In this example in Amos 2:13, it was this intensity, rather than the literal German equivalent of the Hebraism, which he felt was essential for conveying the critical meaning of the verse to the German reader.

Blend of Hebrew Idiom and German Idiom, Steered by Luther’s Handling of the Hebrew Trope of Repetition

Similar to how he handled Amos 2:13, Luther combined a Hebrew idiom with a German idiom in his translation of Hab 1:8. In his translation of Habakkuk, however, he also took the Hebrew trope of repetition into account, which ultimately dictated how he handled the fusion of the Hebrew and German.

Repetition appears in many different forms in the Hebrew Bible, including: apposition of terminology—the repetition of the same word, either immediately after the other or in close proximity; apposition of subject matter—the repetition of a subject or theme, either immediately after the other or in close proximity; paronomastic infinitive—a special instance of apposition, where the infinitive absolute appears immediately before or after a finite form of the same verb; cognate accusative—another special instance of apposition, where a noun follows a verb of the same root; and distributive—where the repetition expresses either a) an extension of time, or b) distinctness (a part) relative to entirety (the whole). Hebrew repetition serves a number of purposes: for emphasis; to indicate an increased intensity or affection; to indicate certainty; to express a repeated series of actions or habitual behavior; to express indeterminateness; or, as appears in the distributive form, to express some type of distributive meaning.

In his commentary on Habakkuk, Luther called attention to a distributive repeated motif, which he specifically identified as a Hebraism—וּפָשׁוּ פָּרָשָׁיו וּפָרָשָׁיו מֵרָחוֹק יָבֹאוּ (ûp̱āšû pārāšāyw ûp̱ārāšāyw mērāḥôq yāḇōʾû, “And their horsemen will spread out, their horsemen will come from afar”):

Here the prophet vividly portrays the Babylonian army to the Jews just as though he could see their approach. For such is the picture that presents itself when an army approaches from a distance. At first only a detachment of horsemen is seen; but the longer they approach, the more they grow in number, and they seem to multiply as they come. That is what Habakkuk means when he says: “Their horsemen are spreading out,” that is, to the view their number seems to increase as they approach. And the fact that they “come from afar” also makes the host appear more numerous. As they come from afar, there seems to be no end to them, and more and more of them seem to be behind them in the distance…. Thus Habakkuk employs the art of a painter here, portraying the approach of a foe and, in addition, describing the emotions of those against whom this is aimed…. Here we note how beautifully and fittingly the prophets are able to speak, and how they can briefly and yet amply depict a subject. For anyone else would have reported this with one word and said: “The Babylonians will come and destroy Jerusalem.” Habakkuk employs many words here. He portrays everything realistically and embellishes it with figures of speech [mit gleichnissen]. And it is necessary to do that when preaching to a hard and rude rabble; one must paint it for them, pound it into them, chew it for them, and resort to every means to see whether they can be moved.Footnote 14

Luther translated וּפָשׁוּ פָּרָשָׁיו וּפָרָשָׁיו מֵרָחוֹק יָבֹאוּ (ûp̱āšû pārāšāyw ûp̱ārāšāyw mērāḥôq yāḇōʾû) in the Deutsche Bibel as Jre reuter zihen mit grossem hauffen von fernen daher (“Their horsemen stretch in great clusters / heaps from afar”)—mit grossem hauffen expressing the distributive exaggeration that he interpreted in the repeated וּפָשׁוּ פָּרָשָׁיו (ûp̱āšû pārāšāyw) and וּפָרָשָׁיו מֵרָחוֹק יָבֹאוּ (ûp̱ārāšāyw mērāḥôq yāḇōʾû).Footnote 15 This represents the third of three principal methods that Luther employed to handle Hebrew repetition: 1) eliminating it completely; 2) retaining it with a literal translation of the repeated elements; or 3) retaining it with an interpretative rendering, which conveyed some facet of what he saw the repetition as expressing.Footnote 16

The origin of Luther’s expression mit grossem hauffen is important. Many idiomatic uses of grosse Haufen appeared in German literature prior to, during, and very shortly after Luther’s time. Karl Wander and Keith Spalding both provide numerous evidences of this, some with explicit mention of Luther.Footnote 17 The frequency with which this expression and variations of it appear in scholarly sources, which date it to Luther’s period and before, suggest that Luther almost certainly took an existing German idiomatic expression and inserted it into the Hebrew idiom, in order to create his amalgamated German rendering for his Deutsche Bibel.

Original Hebrew Idiom:

וּפָשׁוּ פָּרָשָׁיו וּפָרָשָׁיו מֵרָחוֹק יָבֹאוּ (ûp̱āšû pārāšāyw ûp̱ārāšāyw mērāḥôq yāḇōʾû, “And their horsemen will spread out, their horsemen will come from afar”)

Original German Idiom:

grosse Haufen (“great clusters, heaps”)

Luther’s Blended Idiom:

Jre reuter zihen mit grossem hauffen von fernen daher (“Their horsemen stretch in great clusters/heaps from afar”)

Luther’s hybrid rendering, a composite of idiomatic Hebrew and a German figure of speech, mimicked the artistic poetry that he saw in the prophet’s language. He was ultimately exploiting both the Hebrew figure of speech and the Hebrew trope of repetition in order to rouse the emotion of the German reader and, as he put it, to “paint it for them, pound it into them, chew it for them, and resort to every means to see whether they can be moved.”

In sum, this example is another variation in how Luther combined Hebrew and German idioms in his Bible translation. In this case, he took account of two Hebrew linguistic features that drove the figurative meaning of the verse, and ultimately he incorporated both of them as he considered the best German for his rendering.

Blend of Two Hebrew Idioms, Steered by Syntax

A third way in which Luther combined Hebrew and German linguistic elements in his Deutsche Bibel was to blend one Hebrew idiom with another Hebrew idiom. With this third variation of his method, he retained certain pieces of the Hebrew idioms and then interwove interpretative German, creating an amalgamated idiomatic expression for his German Bible, which was more understandable to the German reader than had he simply made a literal rendering of the Hebrew idiom. Like the examples in Amos 2:13 and Hab 1:8, this third approach produced a composite idiomatic rendering, neither purely German nor purely Hebrew in design.

An example of this method appears in Luther’s translation of Joel 1:10. In his lectures, he called attention to a series of Hebrew figures of speech:

The area is laid waste. Read this from the Hebrew this way: “The field is laid waste, the ground has mourned [luxit terra], because the grain is destroyed, the wine is confounded [confusum est mustum], the oil has languished.” He is giving the reason why the cereal and drink offerings are going to be cut off. He says that the field is laid waste, all the grain and wine have been destroyed, etc. We see in this text, however, poetic figures of speech. After all, poets say that the meadows and grasses laugh. That is, they are productive. Here, on the contrary, he declares that the ground mourns [lugere terram], the wine is confounded [confusum esse vinum], etc. The wine has been confounded [Confusum est mustum]. This is a new expression in this prophet. He speaks this way frequently. In German we accurately imitate this manner of speaking, saying: der weyn stehet schentlich [“the wine is shameful”]. Solomon also used this expression often in Proverbs when he speaks about a confounded son [filio confuso] and a confounded wife [muliere confusa], saying: ein schentlich weyp [“a shameful wife”] (cf. Prov 19:13).Footnote 18

When it came time to translate the verse in the Deutsche Bibel, Luther made a literal translation of each of the Hebrew figures of speech to which he called attention, except for one—הוֹבִישׁ תִּירוֹשׁ (hôḇîš tîrôš, “wine has dried up”), which he rendered Der wein stehet jemerlich (“The wine is pitiful, miserable, sorrowful, full of mourning”).Footnote 19 At first glance, his choice of jemerlich is puzzling, in view of his argument in the lectures for schentlich and his reference to confuso in Proverbs.Footnote 20

A thorough consideration of Luther’s lecture remarks, though, together with his Bible translation, suggests that the main driver of his decision to render הוֹבִישׁ תִּירוֹשׁ (hôḇîš tîrôš) in Joel 1:10 as Der wein stehet jemerlich instead of der weyn stehet schentlich —as well as his move away from confuso—was a rhetorical manipulation of two discrete syntactic elements within the string of Hebrew idioms. He took the contextual meaning (the figurative portion) of the almost immediately preceding Hebrew idiom אָבְלָה אֲדָמָה (ʾāḇəlâ ʾăḏāmâ, “the ground mourns”) and applied it to his German rendering (the literal portion) of הוֹבִישׁ תִּירוֹשׁ (hôḇîš tîrôš), thus completing the amalgamation of the two in his German rendering.

Original Hebrew Idioms:

אָבְלָה אֲדָמָה (ʾāḇəlâ ʾăḏāmâ, “the ground has mourned”)

הוֹבִישׁ תִּירוֹשׁ (hôḇîš tîrôš, “wine has dried up, has been confounded”)

Luther’s Literal Rendering of the First Hebrew Idiom:

vnd der acker stehet jemerlich (“and the land is pitiful, sorrowful, full of mourning”)Footnote 21

Luther’s Blended Idiomatic Rendering of the Second Hebrew Idiom:

Der wein stehet jemerlich (“The wine is pitiful, sorrowful, full of mourning”)

Luther translated the full verse as Das feld ist verwuestet, vnd der acker stehet jemerlich, Das getreide ist verdorben, Der wein stehet jemerlich, vnd das oele kleglich.Footnote 22 His German rendering expresses an emotion, and even a cadence, through the repeated stehet jemerlich, still true to the lexical meaning of the Hebrew words but also conveying the fuller meaning of the complete Hebrew verse as he saw it.

Two considerations help to explain Luther’s decision. First, his lecture remarks show that while he interpreted the verse as a series of Hebrew idioms, he nevertheless saw all of them as expressing the same thought. This is clear in his synopsis in the Zwickau lectures: “Merae heroicae figurae: Es stehet alles schentlich (‘Pure heroic figures of speech: Everything was shameful, disgraceful’).”Footnote 23 Second, he seems to have called special attention to the wine idiom, because he discerned some type of further, lexically based parallel betweenהוֹבִישׁ (hôḇîš) andאָבְלָה (ʾāḇəlâ). This is clear from his translation choice of jemerlich—a German word that agrees with the figurative sense of both Hebrew words.Footnote 24 Jemerlich has a semantic range that includes “miserable” and “pitiful,” but also “sorrowful” and “full of grief or lament.”Footnote 25 Furthermore, the prominent role of jemerlich elsewhere in Luther’s translation of the Minor Prophets, specifically in terms of his theology of Anfechtung, suggests that this term, in contrast to schentlich, carried a more profound link to the connotations of sorrow, grief, and lament for him.Footnote 26 It is also a term he used in many places in his writings in an idiomatic sense; thus, his use of it here as part of this “new” figure of speech is no surprise.Footnote 27

It is important also to note that there is an almost identical Hebrew idiom to Luther’s “blended” idiom in Isaiah: אָבַל תִּירוֹשׁ (ʾāḇal tîrôš, “wine mourns”).Footnote 28 While Luther very well may have had this in mind as he translated Joel, it is difficult to say with any certainty that this really influenced him. He did not mention Isaiah in his contemplations on Joel 1:10, and his Deutsche Bibel rendering of Isa 24:7—Der most verschwindet—does not align with his translation of Joel 1:10.Footnote 29 It is, nevertheless, something to take into account when considering the factors that influenced how he handled the Hebrew idioms in Joel 1:10.

In sum, Luther’s amalgamated German idiom retained the literal sense of the obscure Hebrew in terms of the inanimate object wein; yet it also poetically conveyed the affective element buried within the first Hebraism, which, for him, was the key to the meaning of the entire verse. Ultimately, this created an emotive punch in his translation, one which would surely have been grasped by the medieval and early modern German audience.

Conclusion and Implications

Luther’s construction of fused Hebrew and German idioms for his Deutsche Bibel is an uncharted facet of his Hebrew translation method which deserves further attention from scholars. It is a fascinating tool that illuminates the inner workings of one of the most consequential Hebrew translators of the medieval and early modern periods. The few examples surveyed here are only a sampling of many that appear in his translation of the Minor Prophets in the Deutsche Bibel. Thus, there is a mass of data that supports this paper, and also much more outside of these twelve books waiting for further analysis.

This research has a number of implications for scholars in the fields of Luther studies, Hebrew and German linguistics, and medieval and early modern history. First, it suggests that the Hebrew language had a profound influence on Luther’s Deutsche Bibel—more than has been appreciated by scholars to date. While the vast majority of scholars argue that Luther’s Hebrew translation should be seen in terms of his sweeping transformation of the Hebrew into colloquial German, this was not necessarily so, at least not to the extent that scholars portray it to be.Footnote 30 His German Bible was often very Hebrew. This has further implications for German philology. Scholars typically link the role of Hebrew in the German language to Jewish communities and the development of Yiddish, but there may be a more direct influence of Hebrew on modern German.Footnote 31 Many terms and phrases that are in use today in the German language either have originally come into use or have remained in use under the influence of the Hebrew Bible. Moreover, many have done so under the influence of Luther’s translation, thanks to the proliferation of that translation throughout the German-speaking world (in contrast to those German Bible translations preceding Luther’s, which either did not employ the same Germanisms or were simply not adopted by German audiences as Luther’s was).Footnote 32 Literal and nearly literal renderings of Hebraisms into German—as with English and other modern languages—offer the most obvious illustrations of this, for example: von gantzem hertzen (“with all [your] heart”) in Joel 2:12; furchte den HERRN Gott (“fear the Lord God”; cf. “the fear of God”) in Jonah 1:9; and sie seen wind, vnd werden vngewitter einerndten (“they sow the wind, and will reap the whirlwind”; cf. “reap what you sow”) in Hos 8:7. And note the parallel between the ubiquitous modern idiom in Sack und Aschen sitzen (“to sit in sack and ashes”) and Luther’s translations of Amos 8:10—Jch wil vber alle lenden, den sack bringen (“I will bring sackcloth over all loins”)—and Jonah 3:5–6—zogen secke an (“put on sackcloth”) and setzt sich jnn die asschen (“sit in the ashes”).Footnote 33

But more subtle influences of Luther’s translation on modern German should not be overlooked. Nonlexical linguistic features associated with Hebrew semantic intensity and rhetorical effect, for example, are just as important as the terminology in this regard. Luther’s specific role in this is important, particularly on account of the crucial role that the printing and distribution of his Deutsche Bibel played in the dissemination of certain German linguistic features associated with the dialects he used in his Bible. The fact that one can identify such linguistic phenomena as hybrid Hebrew-German idioms in his Bible, idioms which have not previously been identified by scholars, suggests that the influence of Hebrew on the German language from Luther’s time forward is likely more than what has been fully appreciated.

This research also shows that Luther’s Hebrew translation method was much more complex than has been argued by scholars. He was not simply moving on a scale somewhere between a “literal” translation and a dynamic equivalent.Footnote 34 His method was far more nuanced than this, which his hermeneutical device of blending Hebrew and German idioms demonstrates in and of itself. The complexity in his method shows further in the fact that he utilized sophisticated, varying techniques to create these amalgamated Germanisms: sometimes blending one German idiom with one Hebrew idiom; other times blending two Hebrew idioms; and still other times, blending idiomatic Hebrew with idiomatic German, where there was a further influence of other linguistic elements of the Hebrew (as shown in this study, the Hebrew trope of repetition). This data helps to augment other evidences of this diversity in Luther’s translation which are beginning to appear in new research.Footnote 35

Along this same line of thought, this research also challenges critiques of Luther’s Hebrew—both positive and negative—which are based solely on assessments of his translation against lexical Hebrew. While he certainly consulted the Hebrew lexicons and grammars of his time, most prominently Reuchlin’s Rudimenta, as Siegfried Raeder and others have shown, he simply did not translate Hebrew exclusively on the basis of lexical considerations (i.e. grammar, syntax, and dictionary definitions of Hebrew terms).Footnote 36 Instead, he was weighing many factors: linguistic elements of the Hebrew language such as the trope of repetition; aspects of semantic intensity; how he could best replicate the emotive elements of a particular Hebrew text; and, of course, idiomatic usage of the Hebrew.

This further challenges scholars to take a more thorough look at additional devices such as rhetoric in Luther’s Hebrew translation method. While some scholars have made great strides on this front in recent decades (e.g., Junghans, Stolt, Vind, and zur Mühlen), more work can be done on this, especially concerning his Hebrew work.Footnote 37 Brian Cummings, arguing for placing the sixteenth century within a medieval context, suggests that “Grammar in the middle ages has a far wider resonance than in modern usage…. There was constant seepage between the boundaries of grammatica and its sister arts of dialectica and rhetorica…. Grammar as a word therefore covered the full range of the linguistic and the literary, the semantic and the semiotic.”Footnote 38 Examining Luther’s Hebrew through this lens may uncover further insights into his translation method, and into the languages with which he engaged.

Finally, this study suggests that certain aspects of Jewish-Christian intellectual relations in the medieval and early modern world should be reconsidered. Medieval Christian Hebraists’ (e.g., Nicholas of Lyra, Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples, Johannes Reuchlin) use of Jewish commentaries, grammars, and dictionaries—not to mention private Jewish teachers of Hebrew and Aramaic in some cases—to support their translation and commentary work is well documented.Footnote 39 Luther and his Wittenberg team are no exception.Footnote 40 Moreover, Luther and his team drew heavily upon these Christian Hebraists’ work and integrated it into their own, thus also implicitly drawing upon Jewish sources. The evidence in this study that Luther’s German Bible transmitted previously undetected Hebrew linguistic elements to a massive audience throughout Germany and Europe during the medieval and early modern periods shows that the Jewish people exerted a continuing influence in the region, by means of their language, in a way that has not been fully appreciated. This interweaving of Jewish and German-Christian culture, which occurred during a time when direct relations between Jews and Christians in Europe were frequently nonexistent—and, where they did exist, were frayed and often toxic—shows that much more research needs to be done in this area. At the very least, the scholarly understanding of Jewish-Christian intellectual relations should be further nuanced in order to take into account these types of implicit, indirect influences. In sum, despite the enormous amount of past scholarly attention to Martin Luther, surprisingly, vast areas of his work remain unexplored; and consequently, new investigations into that body of work are still needed in order to illuminate further our understanding of the medieval and early modern world.

References

1 Birgit Stolt’s work on this specific subject, though, is excellent. See Stolt, “Luther’s Translation of the Bible,” LQ 28 (2014) 373–400. Cf. Birgit Stolt, Die Sprachmischung in Luthers Tischreden. Studien zum Problem der Zweisprachigkeit (Acta Universitatis Stockholmiensis; Stockholmer germanistische Forschungen 4; Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1964). The characterization “literal” is employed specifically to indicate a translation according to the Hebrew lexical definition. This should be differentiated from the similarly termed “literal sense,” which is often used in a much different meaning. Furthermore, while the characterization “literal” is avoided by linguists today because it is seen as too problematic and imprecise, it is used here in order not to confuse the nontechnical, nonlinguist reader.

2 For example, scholars often cite Luther’s translation of שָׁבִיתָ שֶּׁבִי (šāḇîṯā šeḇî, “You have taken captivity captive”) in Ps 68:19 with Du hast das Gefängnis gefangen (“You have imprisoned prison”). See Stolt, “Luther’s Translation of the Bible,” 385; and M. Reu, Luther’s German Bible: An Historical Presentation, Together with a Collection of Sources (Concordia Heritage Series; St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1984 [repr. of Columbus, OH: Lutheran Book of Concern, 1934]) 274–75. Another commonly cited example, specifically concerning Luther’s Greek translation, is his translation of the Ave Maria in Lk 1:28. See Heinz Bluhm, Martin Luther: Creative Translator (St. Louis: Concordia, 1965) 151–66; and Stolt, “Luther’s Translation of the Bible,” 382–84.

3 For a summary of the most important scholarship to date on Luther’s Hebrew, see Andrew J. Niggemann, Martin Luther’s Hebrew in Mid-Career: The Minor Prophets Translation (Spätmittelalter, Humanismus, Reformation 108; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019) 31–39; also in Andrew J. Niggemann, “Martin Luther’s Hebrew in Mid-Career: The Minor Prophets Translation” (PhD diss., University of Cambridge, 2018) 32–40. The most influential work to date on this subject comes from Raeder’s trilogy of monographs: Siegfried Raeder, Das Hebräische bei Luther. Untersucht bis zum Ende der ersten Psalmenvorlesung (BHT 31; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1961); idem, Die Benutzung des masoretischen Textes bei Luther in der Zeit zwischen der ersten und zweiten Psalmenvorlesung (1515–1518) (BHT 38; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1967); and idem, Grammatica Theologica. Studien zu Luthers Operationes in Psalmos (BHT 51; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1977).

4 See Niggemann, Martin Luther’s Hebrew in Mid-Career.

5 This paper focuses explicitly on existing 16th-century German idioms and idiomatic language, which Luther integrated into his translations. Idioms in the Hebrew Bible, which the German language simply took on as a literal rendering, are out of scope for this study.

6 Furthermore, Luther lectured on all twelve of the Minor Prophets and wrote commentaries for Jonah, Habakkuk, and Zechariah, thus providing great insight into his translations.

7 Luther was never translating any given Hebrew term, phrase, or verse in isolation. In addition to working with a team of translators in Wittenberg, his consultation of church fathers, rabbinical sources, Hebrew lexicons, commentaries, and other translations is well known and documented. For more on this, see Raeder, Das Hebräische, esp. 311–67; Niggemann, Martin Luther’s Hebrew in Mid-Career, esp. 10–39; and Volker Leppin, “Luther’s Roots in Monastic-Mystical Piety,” in The Oxford Handbook of Martin Luther’s Theology (ed. Robert Kolb, Irene Dingel, and L’ubomír Batka; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014) 49–61.

8 “Figura hebraica est, q. d. sicut gemit plaustrum plenum stipula, ita etiam curabo ut gematis vos sub plaustris Assyriacis hoc est pressi onere et labore nimio gemetis, opprimemini rursum qui iam elati et fastuosi estis. Et hoc est, quod ait subter, quod nos latine commode reddere non possumus.” WA 13:170.25–29. LW 18:143. Unless otherwise noted, all English translations in this study are my own. Where I provide the LW references, I generally only make critical adjustments as necessary in order to align with the WA. Citations of Luther’s works throughout this study are abbreviated as follows: 1) LW: Martin Luther, Luther’s Works (ed. Jaroslav Pelikan, Helmut T. Lehmann, and Christopher Boyd Brown; 75 vols.; Philadelphia: Fortress; St. Louis: Concordia, 1955–); 2) WA: Martin Luther, D. Martin Luthers Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe (73 vols.; Weimar: Böhlau, 1883–2009); and 3) WA DB: Martin Luther, D. Martin Luthers Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe. Die Deutsche Bibel (12 vols.; Weimar: Böhlau, 1906–61).

9 Rashi’s text reads: את חנייתכם (“your encampment, camping place”); MG, The Twelve Minor Prophets [עמוס פרק ב,[ספר תרי עשר (Mikra’ot Gedolot Haketer [מקראות גדולות הכתר]. A Revised and Augmented Scientific Edition of “Mikra’ot Gedolot” Based on the Aleppo Codex and Early Medieval MSS [ed. Menachem Cohen; 13 vols.; Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University, 1992], abbreviated MG). On תַּחְתֵּיכֶם (taḥtêḵem), see Johannes Reuchlin, De rudimentis Hebraicis (Pforzheim: Thomas Anselm, 1506) 538. In his Postilla, Lyra emphasized the meaning of the Hebrew text as a punitive measure; see Biblia latina: cum glossa ordinaria Walafridi Strabonis aliorumque, et interlineari Anselmi Laudunensis, et cum postillis ac moralitatibus Nicolai de Lyra. et … (Basel: Johannes Froben and Johannes Petri, 1498), at Amos 2:13.

Throughout this study, Vulgate references are from: Biblia Sacra, iuxta Vulgatam versionem (ed. Roger Gryson; 5th rev. ed.; Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2007); and Hebrew Bible references come from Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (ed. K. Elliger, W. Rudolph, and A. Schenker; 5th rev. ed.; Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1997). This study does not address the Septuagint because Luther does not explicitly address in it his remarks concerning the translations in this study. Unless otherwise noted, Luther’s Deutsche Bibel references in this study for the Minor Prophets are the 1534 (dated 1532 in the Weimarer Ausgabe) edition. In general, Latin definitions provided in this study come from: A Latin Dictionary Founded on Andrews’ Edition of Freund’s Latin Dictionary: Revised, Enlarged, and in Great Part Rewritten by Charlton T. Lewis (ed. Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short; Oxford: Clarendon, 1987); and P. G. W. Glare, Oxford Latin Dictionary (2 vols; 2nd ed.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). Hebrew definitions come from: A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament: With an Appendix Containing the Biblical Aramaic, Based on the Lexicon of William Gesenius as Translated by Edward Robinson (ed. Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs; rev. ed.; Oxford: Clarendon, [1959]); and Lexicon in Veteris Testamenti Libros (ed. Ludwig Koehler and Walter Baumgartner; Leiden: Brill, 1953). German definitions come from: Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm, Deutsches Wörterbuch von Jacob und Wilhelm Grimm (16 vols.; Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1854–1961), abbreviated DWB; Dudenredaktion, Duden Deutsches Universalwörterbuch (5th ed.; Mannheim: Dudenverlag, 2003); and Oxford Duden German Dictionary (ed. Dudenredaktion and the German Section of the Oxford University Press Dictionary Department; 3rd ed.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). Definitions are only noted in the footnotes for outstanding instances.

10 WA DB 11.2:234.13. “Look,” or “behold.” I find “behold” archaic. The Vulgate, by contrast, translated it as: ecce ego stridebo super vos (“Behold, I will make a high-pitched noise [a hiss] over you”).

11 See DWB 11:839–43. Grimm says it is a word that has lost much of its literary meaning; he also provides the definition: “all sorts of sharp trembling tones [Es bezeichnet allerhand scharfe zitternde tone]”; and furthermore, “to scream from Angst [schreien vor angst].” See SPAL 31:1469 (Keith Spalding, An Historical Dictionary of German Figurative Usage [60 fascicles; fascicles 1–40 with the assistance of Kenneth Brooke; fascicles 51–60 with the assistance of Gerhard Müller-Schwefe; Oxford: Blackwell, 1959–2000], abbreviated SPAL).

12 See Niggemann, Martin Luther’s Hebrew in Mid-Career, 64–75. Concerning Luther’s use of multiple languages, see Stolt, Die Sprachmischung. Cf. Birgit Stolt, “Laßt uns fröhlich springen!” Gefühlswelt und Gefühlsnavigierung in Luthers Reformationsarbeit. Eine kognitive Emotionalitätsanalyse auf philologischer Basis (Berlin: Weidler, 2012) 58–60, 230–36, where she discusses his diglossia (use of two languages by a community according to specific circumstances).

13 Semantic intensity is a technical designation that linguists use to identify emotion and extremity of language that deviates from a neutral position. John Bowers defines language intensity as “the quality of language which indicates the degree to which the speaker’s attitude toward a concept deviates from neutrality…. High intensity, thus, is characterized by emotionalism and extremity” (John Waite Bowers, “Language Intensity, Social Introversion, and Attitude Change,” Speech Monographs 30 [1963] 345–52, at 345). Bradac, Bowers, and Courtright advise that most linguistic researchers accept Bowers’s definition (James J. Bradac, John Waite Bowers, and John A. Courtright, “Three Language Variables in Communication Research: Intensity, Immediacy, and Diversity,” Human Communication Research 5 [1979] 257–69, at 258). On the specific use of “semantic intensity” in the field of linguistics, see Karl Sorning, “Some Remarks on Linguistic Strategies of Persuasion,” in Language, Power and Ideology: Studies in Political Discourse (ed. Ruth Wodak; Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1989) 95–113, at 97–98; Chaitanya Shivade et al., “Corpus-Based Discovery of Semantic Intensity Scales,” in Proceedings of the North American Association of Computational Linguistics Annual Meeting (NAACL) (Denver: Association for Computational Linguistics, 2015) 483–93; and Joo-Kyung Kim, Marie-Catherine de Marneffe, and Eric Fosler-Lussier, “Adjusting Word Embeddings with Semantic Intensity Orders,” in Proceedings of the 1st Workshop on Representation Learning for NLP (Berlin: Association for Computational Linguistics, 2016) 62–69. On similar concepts such as enargia and hypotyposis, see Richard A. Lanham, A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968) 40, 58.

14 “Und der Prophet bildet hie das Babylonische heer den Juden fur die augen, als sehe ers daher zihen. Denn so lest sichs ansehen, wenn ein heer von ferne kompt, das der reuter am ersten ein hauffen gesehen wird, Aber yhe lenger sie zihen, yhe mehr yhr wird und erfurkomen, als mehreten sie sich ym zuge. Das wil er damit, wenn er sagt: ‘Seine reutter breyten sich aus’, das ist, ym zihen wird yhr yhe lenger yhe mehr, wenn man zusihet, wie sie komen. ‘Und komen von ferne’, das macht auch den hauffen groesser anzusehen, wenn sie von ferne daher zihen und einen dunckt, es wolle kein ende nemen und sey noch ymer mehr dahinden ynn der ferne … Also braucht Habacuc hie maler kunst, das er den einzug der feinde fur die augen malet und daneben anzeygt, wie denen zu synn ist, den es gilt … Da sehen wyr, wie fein und eben die Propheten reden konnen, und wie sie kurtz und doch reichlich ein ding ausstreichen. Denn das ein ander hette gesagt mit eym wort: also ‘die Babylonier werden komen und Jerusalem zurstoeren’, das redet Habacuc mit vielen worten und streicht es alles eygentlich aus und schmucks mit gleichnissen, wie man denn auch thun mus, wenn man dem groben, harten poefel prediget; dem mus man es fur malen, blawen und kawen und alle weyse versuchen, ob man sie konne erweichen.” WA 19:369.17–26, WA 19:370.1–3, 6–12. LW 19:171. Cf. WA 13:427.36–38; LW 19:113; WA 13:399.14–25. The context of the verse suggests the pronoun “their” and not “his” or “its.”

15 WA DB 11.2:302.8. The Vulgate rendered this as et diffundentur equites eius equites namque eius de longe venient (“And their horsemen will be spread out, for their horsemen will come from afar”); the context of the verse suggests the pronoun “their” and not “his” or “its.” By comparison, Luther translated וְכֹבֶד (wəḵōḇeḏ, “and a mass of, a great number of”) in Nah 3:3 as vnd grosse hauffen. WA DB 11.2:294.3. For further comparison, Rashi’s remarks concerning this text were simply: ירבו פרשיו (“his horsemen will increase, multiply”); MG, The Twelve Minor Prophets,

חבקוק פרק א,[ספר תרי עשר]. On וּפָשׁוּ (ûp̱āšû), see Reuchlin, De rudimentis Hebraicis, 421. In his Postilla, Lyra identified this as hyperbole; see Biblia latina, at Hab 1:8.

16 His method for handling the Hebrew trope of repetition was, on the whole, variable and inconsistent. For more on this, see Niggemann, Martin Luther’s Hebrew in Mid-Career, 76–81; and on the broader issue of general inconsistency in Luther’s Hebrew translation method, see 47–97.

17 See WAN 2:390–91 and SPAL 27:1252–54, both with direct mention of Luther (Deutsches Sprichwörter-Lexikon. Ein Hausschatz für das deutsche Volk [ed. Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Wander; 5 vols.; Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1867–80], abbreviated WAN). Cf. DWB 10:582–85.

18 “Depopulata est regio. Ex hebraeo sic lege: depopulatus est ager, luxit terra, quoniam vastatum est triticum, confusum est mustum, elanguit oleum. Reddit rationem, quare sit periturum sacrificium et libamen, quia, inquit, depopulatus est ager, perierunt fruges omnes, periit vinum etc. Videmus autem in hoc textu manifeste poeticas figuras. Dicunt enim poetae ridere prata et segetes, hoc est felicia esse. Hic in contrarium dicit lugere terram, confusum esse vinum etc. Confusum est mustum. Nova vox in isto propheta, frequenter enim sic loquitur. Germanice recte hunc modum loquendi imitamur dicentes der weyn stehet schentlich, qua voce etiam Salomon in proverbiis saepe usus est de filio confuso et muliere confusa loquens ein schentlich weyp.” WA 13:92.3–13. LW 18:84.Schändlich is the modern German spelling of schentlich. This appears as schentlich stehet der wein in the Zwickau text; WA 13:70.11. The LW translates dicentes in this tract as “in the expression.” I believe that this may mislead the reader into believing that there was an equivalent Germanism of der weyn stehet schentlich (“The wine is shameful, disgraceful”) during Luther’s time. I can find no evidence of such a German expression in Luther’s time, or before, or after. Thus, I have adjusted the English translation to “saying,” in order to more accurately reflect the Latin.

19 Luther translated the full verse as: “Das feld ist verwuestet, vnd der acker stehet jemerlich, Das getreide ist verdorben, Der wein stehet jemerlich, vnd das oele kleglich.” WA DB 11.2:216.10. The modern German spelling of jemerlich is jämmerlich. The Vulgate, by contrast, rendered הוֹבִישׁ תִּירוֹשׁ (hôḇîš tîrôš, “wine dries up”) in Joel 1:10 as confusum est vinum (“wine is confounded”). Luther, of course, consulted the Vulgate along with the Hebrew for all of his translations, which his lecture and commentary remarks make very clear. As a point of comparison, Rashi did not make any remarks concerning this; see MG, The Twelve Minor Prophets [יואל פרק א,[ספר תרי עשר. In his Postilla, Lyra emphasized the metaphorical meaning of the text; and in his Additiones, Burgos emphasized the figurative meaning of the broader chapter. See Biblia latina, at Joel 1:10.

20 The modern German spelling of schentlich is schändlich. Even though Luther identified an “equivalent” Hebraism in Prov, the Hebrew terms in Prov are different than what appear in Joel. This is something that Luther did quite often in his interpretation of the Hebrew Bible; on this subject, see Niggemann, Martin Luther’s Hebrew in Mid-Career, 147–49, 164, 220.

Prov 19:13 in the Hebrew Bible reads: הַוֹּת לְאָבִיו בֵּן כְּסִיל וְדֶלֶף טֹרֵד מִדְיְנֵי אִשָּׁה (hawwôṯ ləʾāḇîw bēn kəsîl wəḏelep̱ ṭōrēḏ miḏyənê ʾiššâ, “A foolish son is the ruin of his father and the contentions of a wife are a continual dripping”). Luther translated this as: Eyn nerrischer son ist seynes vaters hertzen leyd, Vnd eyn zenckisch weyb eyn stettiges trieffen (“A foolish son is his father’s heartbreak, and a quarrelsome woman [is] a continuous drip”). WA DB 10.2:62.13. The Vulgate, by contrast, rendered it: dolor patris filius stultus et tecta iugiter perstillantia litigiosa mulier (“A foolish son is the vexation of [his] father and a quarrelsome wife [is like] a persistently leaking roof”). Cf. Luther’s confuso and confusa in his lectures, with the Vulgate’s filius and litigiosa.

21 The Vulgate translated this as luxit humus (“the ground mourned”).

22 WA DB 11.2:216.10.

23 WA 13:70.11–12.

24 That translation decision was not unfounded. Hebrew scholars argue for parallelism between יבש (yḇš) and אבל (ʾḇl). See TDOT 1:47, 5:378. (Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament [ed. G. Johannes Botterweck, Helmer Ringgren; trans. John T. Willis; 15 vols. (vols. 1 and 2: rev. ed., 1977; vols. 4–7: trans. David E. Green; vol. 8: trans. Douglas W. Stott; vols. 7, 8, and 14: ed. Heinz-Josef Fabry); Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974–2006]; originally published in German as Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Alten Testament [ed. G. Botterweck, Helmer Ringgren, and Heinz-Josef Fabry; 8 vols.; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1970–2000], abbreviated TDOT).

25 See DWB 10:2255–56. Also see WDS 1:834–35 (Daniel Sanders, Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache [2 vols.; Leipzig: Otto Wigand, 1860–65], abbreviated WDS).

26 See Niggemann, Martin Luther’s Hebrew in Mid-Career, 87–88 n. 132, 113, 117, 122–26, 122 n. 61, 123 nn. 62–63, 125–26 n. 75, 234–35, 238–39, 248–49, 249 n. 27, 320–21. For more on Luther’s Anfechtung, see Erich Vogelsang, Der angefochtene Christus bei Luther (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1932); Paul Bühler, Die Anfechtung bei Martin Luther (Zürich: Zwingli-Verlag, 1942); Clarence Warren Hovland, “An Examination of Luther’s Treatment of Anfechtung in his Biblical Exegesis from the Time of the Evangelical Experience to 1545” (PhD diss., Yale University, 1950); and Horst Beintker, Die Überwindung der Anfechtung bei Luther. Eine Studie zu seiner Theologie nach den Operationes in Psalmos 1519–21 (Berlin: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1954).

27 See n. 26.

28 Or, “wine has mourned.”

29 See WA 31.2:132.27–29; LW 16:188; WA DB 11.1:78.7. Cf. numerous other places where Luther translated הוֹבִישׁ (hôḇîš) (various conjugations) as schanden (various conjugations). See, for example: Isa 30:5 [WA DB 11.1:94.5]; Jer 2:25 [WA DB 11.1:200.26]; and Zech 10:5 [WA DB 11.2:350.5]. These are only a few of many more examples. This further supports the view here that the preceding idiom in Joel 1:10 played a special role in Luther’s rendering of הוֹבִישׁ (hôḇîš) in that verse.

30 See WA 30.2:637.17–22.

31 The German idiomatic terms and phrases that appear in this paper almost certainly do not have origins in Yiddish, based on an examination of scholarly works, including Groyser verterbukh fun der Yidisher shprakh = Great Dictionary of the Yiddish Language (ed. Yudel Mark and Judah Achilles Joffe; 4 vols. of a planned future 6 total; New York: Yiddish Dictionary Committee, 1961–); and Hans Peter Althaus, Kleines Lexicon deutscher Wörter jiddischer Herkunft (4th ed.; Munich: Beck, 2019). Moreover, the scholarly resources on historical German idioms, already noted in this paper, do not find such origins.

32 For more on the German Bibles that preceded Luther’s, see Reu, Luther’s German Bible, 19–54.

33 Joel 2:12: WA DB 11.2:218.12; Jonah 1:9: WA DB 11.2:262.9; Hos 8:7: WA DB 11.2:198.7; Amos 8:10: WA DB 11.2:246.10; Jonah 3:5–6: WA DB 11.2:266.5–6. For these and more examples, see Niggemann, Martin Luther’s Hebrew in Mid-Career, 234–303. Obviously, many of these terms and phrases appear in other Hebrew Bible verses as well.

34 Bluhm and others, nevertheless, have shown this aspect of Luther’s translation very well. See Bluhm, Creative Translator; and Stolt, “Luther’s Translation of the Bible.”

35 See Niggemann, Martin Luther’s Hebrew in Mid-Career.

36 On Luther’s use of the Rudimenta, see Raeder, Das Hebräische; idem, Die Benutzung; idem, Grammatica Theologica; Reu, Luther’s German Bible, 114–15; and Gerhard Krause, Studien zu Luthers Auslegung der Kleinen Propheten (BHT 33; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1962) 64–65. On the role of emotion and linguistics in Luther’s German translation, see Stolt, ‘Laßt uns fröhlich springen!’, 189–90. On the role of rhetorical tools in late medieval and early modern humanism, see Karl-Heinz zur Mühlen, “Die Affektenlehre im Spätmittelalter und in der Reformationszeit,” Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte 35 (1992) 93–114; Junghans, Martin Luther und die Rhetorik, esp. 5–7 concerning humanism; and Lewis Spitz, Luther and German Humanism (Aldershot: Variorum, 1996), esp. VIII.69–94.

37 Helmar Junghans, Martin Luther und die Rhetorik (Stuttgart/Leipzig: Verlag der Sächsischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig: In Kommission bei S. Hirzel, 1998); Birgit Stolt, Martin Luthers Rhetorik des Herzens (Uni-Taschenbücher 2141; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000); Anna Vind, “Martin Luther and Rhetoric,” in Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion (ed. John Barton; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), doi: 10.1093/acrefore/9780199340378.013.290; zur Mühlen, “Die Affektenlehre.”

38 Brian Cummings, The Literary Culture of the Reformation: Grammar and Grace (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002) 20–21.

39 See Stephen G. Burnett, Christian Hebraism in the Reformation Era (1500–1660): Authors, Books, and the Transmission of Jewish Learning (Leiden: Brill, 2012); idem, “Jüdische Vermittler des Hebräischen und ihre christlichen Schüler im Spätmittelalter,” in Wechselseitige Wahrnehmung der Religionen im Spätmittelalter und in der Frühen Neuzeit. Vol. 1: Konzeptionelle Grundfragen und Fallstudien (Heiden, Barbaren, Juden) (ed. Ludger Grenzmann et al.; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2009) 173–88; idem, “Reassessing the ‘Basel-Wittenberg Conflict’: Dimensions of the Reformation-Era Discussion of Hebrew Scholarship,” in Hebraica Veritas? Christian Hebraists and the Study of Judaism in Early Modern Europe (ed. Allison P. Coudert and Jeffrey S. Shoulson; Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004) 181–201; and Niggemann, Martin Luther’s Hebrew in Mid-Career, 10–31.

40 See n. 39; and Sachiko Kusukawa, A Wittenberg University Library Catalogue of 1536 (Cambridge: LP Publications, 1995).