Translation help: Luther's commentary on Judges

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jeidsath
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Translation help: Luther's commentary on Judges

Post by jeidsath »

This is my extremely poor attempt at a translation of a few sentences from Luther's commentary on judges.
Nota, quod ex presenti historia nascitur, primum scilicet: Noli esse Iudas sine Simeone, i. e. si vis esse dux belli, scilicet predicator, non sis audax aut nimium confidens sine sacra scriptura, quia impossibile est quin vincaris.
Note what comes from this present history: first it is obvious that you should not be Judah without Simeon, that is if you wish to be a warlord, obviously a preacher would not be so daring or trusting beyond measure without sacred scripture, because it is impossible that you would not be conquered.
Nam euangelium audiendum est, quasi dominum presentem, quasi Christum loquentem audiamus: quod enim pretiosum sonabat de ore Domini, et propter nos scriptum est et nobis servatum et propter nos recitatur et propter pastores recitabitur et donec seculum finiatur.
For the hearing of the gospel is [listening] as if the Lord is at hand, as if we are hearing Christ speaking; in fact what utterance he [the preacher] was making was form the mouth of the Lord, and scripture is on account of us, and was kept for us, and has been recited on account of us, and on account of pastors shall be read aloud, and until the end of the world.
Cum enim duo audiunt euangelium seu verba euangelii, unus impius, alter pius, et talia sunt, ut forte non intelligant, unus dicit: 'nihil dixit', alter dicit: 'verum dixit et bonum est, quod dixit, sed nos non intelligimus etc.'
When two people hear the gospel or the words of the gospel, one impious, the other pious, and are of the sort where they are of very limited intelligence, the first says: "he spoke nonsense," the other says: "he spoke truth and what he says is good, but we are not intelligent, and so on."
Ideo valde necessarium est habere et scire confessorem seu predicatorem sacram scripturam et eius intelligentiam.
A fellow board-member has translated this last for me (but without having seen the context) as: Διὸ λίαν ἀνάγκη ἐστὶ τὸν ὁμολογητὴν ἢ κηρύσσονα ἔχειν καὶ εἰδέναι τὴν ἁγίαν γραφὴν καὶ τὴν αὐτῆς σύνεσιν.

For that reason there is an extreme necessity for the confessor or preacher to know the holy scripture and to have his own understanding.
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

Joel Eidsath -- jeidsath@gmail.com

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bedwere
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Re: Translation help: Luther's commentary on Judges

Post by bedwere »

On Google Books
I'd translate scilicet as "that is to say" and respect punctuation.

Note what comes from this present history, first that it to say: you should not be Judah without Simeon, that is if you should wish to be a warlord, that it to say a preacher, be not daring or trusting beyond measure without sacred scripture, because it is impossible that you would not be conquered.

For the gospel must be heard as if the Lord were at hand, as if we were hearing Christ speaking; in fact what valuable utterance was making sound from the mouth of the Lord, was written on account of us, and was kept for us, and is recited on account of us, and on account of pastors shall be read aloud, and until the end of the world.

When two people hear the gospel or the words of the gospel, one impious, the other pious, and those [words] are of the sort that they would not understand, the first says: "he spoke nonsense," the other says: "he spoke truth and what he says is good, but we don't understand, and so on."

For that reason there is an extreme necessity for the confessor or preacher to know the holy scripture and to have understanding of that [thereof, of the scripture].

If Luther had meant his own, he would have written suam, but even he put some limits to subjective interpretation. :wink:

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Re: Translation help: Luther's commentary on Judges

Post by Timothée »

I don’t really know the theology and the correct theological terminology, which would help. But something like the following:
Note what comes out of the story at hand, namely first: Don’t be Judas without Simon, that is, if you want to be warlord, namely preacher, you should not be audacious or too confident without the sacred scripture, because it’s impossible that you’re conquered.

For the gospel should be heard, as we hear the present Lord and Christ speak. Because namely it [= gospel] sounded precious from Lord’s mouth, and it is written for us and it is preserved for us, and it is recited for us and it will be recited for the shepherds/pastors until the generation/century/era/time finishes.

Namely when two hear the gospel or the words of gospel, one impious, other pious, and they are such that they by chance / possibly don’t understand [it]. One says: “He/It said nothing”. The other says: “He said the truth and what he said is good, but we don’t understand [it] etc.”

Because of that it is very important for the confessor and preacher to have and to know the the sacred scripture and to understand it.
It’s dreadful English, that goes without saying. I may well have committed errors, which will hopefully be corrected by commentators.

EDIT: Wherever I and Bedwere differ, you should follow Bedwere.

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Re: Translation help: Luther's commentary on Judges

Post by jeidsath »

Looking at the edits:

1. primum scilicet -- first that is to say

And it appears that this usage is described in Lewis and Short:
II. Transf., in the postAug. per. sometimes, like δηλονότι in later Greek, merely as an expletory or explanatory particle, namely, to wit, that is to say: “quaedam etiam opera sub nomine alieno, nepotum scilicet et uxoris sororisque, fecit,” Suet. Aug. 29; id. Tib. 14: “manente villā, qualis fuerit olim, ne quid scilicet oculorum consuetudini deperiret,” id. Vesp. 2; so, “ne scilicet,” id. Gram. 4; Vulg. Gen. 2, 25 et saep.
2. si vis esse -- if you should wish

I don't know anything about Latin conditionals yet, though I noticed that vis was indicative and assumed it worked like Greek. What would "if you wish" be?

3. non sis audax -- be not daring

sis is present subjunctive, but appears to be used in an imperative sense here?

4. audiendum est -- must be heard

Perseus gave "gerundive" which I didn't quite understand. Does audiendum function like a verbal adjective in -τέος in Greek?

5. audiamus -- were hearing

This is a 4th conjugation, so I should have noted that it was audiamus and subjunctive.

6. scriptum est -- was written

Is scriptum a passive participle?

7. confessorem -- I assumed that this was confessor in my translation, that is, someone who hears confession. I notice that Lewis and Short describe it as someone who confesses a belief. I am correct in my assumption that this changed in late Latin?

8. eius intelligentiam -- understanding of that

eius is not reflexive, but suam is, I take it.
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

Joel Eidsath -- jeidsath@gmail.com

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Re: Translation help: Luther's commentary on Judges

Post by Timothée »

Interesting to see the different outlook on Luther between (I assume) a Catholic Italian and a Lutheran Finn. In Lutheran areas Luther tends to be generally thought positively as standing up to the corrupt Catholic church particularly with those abhorrent indulgences etc.

It has to be added that Luther is not by any means seen black-and-white here and the bad things he wrote have not been forgotten. This year he is reminisced, in Germany and in the Nordic countries, 500 years after his famous 95 theses.

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Re: Translation help: Luther's commentary on Judges

Post by bedwere »

2) if you wish. Sorry.
3) A polite imperative, you wouldn't be.
4) Yes. One of these days, have a look at that little comparative grammar.
6) It can mean both it was written and it is written (aorist or perfect in Greek).
7) Private confession started with the Irish monks, as far as I know. So late Latin.

I heard from historian Paul Gottfried on the Tom Wood's show that mainstream Lutheran Germans feel ackward about Luther and the whole 500 years celebration because of his writings against the Jews. On the other hand, the Pope loves him. So goes the world.

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Re: Translation help: Luther's commentary on Judges

Post by Timothée »

Germans are unfortunately still incapable of dealing with their collective guilt of the Second World War and in particular what was done to Jews. It was bad to say the least, but despite that they should by now start to get over it (which doesn’t mean they should forget it) for their own sake and for the sake of the world.

What Luther wrote about Jews and “their lies” is of course despicable and a stain on his reputation (that’s why is said he’s not seen black-and-white), but it must not be seen in the light of the Holocaust (the exact same goes with e.g. Wagner’s writings about Jewish composers). It must be studied only in the context of the 16th century.

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Re: Translation help: Luther's commentary on Judges

Post by jeidsath »

In fact the quote is for a relative who is doing a daily Luther blog in commemoration of the 500th anniversary. (I am ashamed of my errors, but I was pressed into service anyway.)

https://luthertoday.wordpress.com/2017/ ... ster-1517/

Apparently this was from student notes, and the lecturer may or may not have been Luther. It is interesting to get a peak into that age of the world and its concerns. That breadth of time is another reason for me to keep learning Latin.
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

Joel Eidsath -- jeidsath@gmail.com

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