“The Protestant Spirit of Luther's Version.”
Dr. Emser, one of the most learned opponents of the Reformation, singled out in Luther's New Testament several hundred linguistic blunders and heretical falsifications. Many of them were silently corrected in later editions. He published, by order of Duke George of Saxony, a new translation (1527) for the purpose of correcting the errors of "Luther and other heretics."
Notable examples of Luther's renderings of Hebrew and Greek words
Source: Annotationes des hochgel. und christl. doctors Hieronymi Emsers über Luthers neuw Testament, 1523. Emser charges Luther with a thousand grammatical and fourteen hundred heretical errors. He suspects (p. 14) that he had before him "ein sonderlich Wickleffisch oder Hussisch Exemplar." He does not say whether he means a copy of the Latin Vulgate or the older German version. He finds (p. 17) four errors in Luther's version of the Lord's Prayer: 1, that he turned Vater unser into Unser Vater, against the German custom for a thousand years (but in his Shorter Catechism he retained the old form, and the Lutherans adhere to it to this day); 2, that he omitted der du bist; 3, that he changed the panis supersubstantialis (überselbständig Brot!) into panis quotidianus (täglich Brot); 4, that he added the doxology, which is not in the Vulgate. In our days, one of the chief objections against the English Revision is the omission of the doxology.
Source: Das gantz New Testament: So durch den Hochgelerten L. Hieronymum Emser seligen verteutscht, unter des Durchlauchten Hochgebornen Fürsten und Herren Georgen Hertzogen zu Sachsen, etc., ausgegangen ist. Leipzig, 1528. The first edition appeared before Emser's death, which occurred Nov. 8, 1527. I find in the Union Seminary four octavo copies of his N. T., dated Cöln, 1528 (355 pp.), Leipzig, 1529 (416 pp.), Freiburg-i.-B. 1535 (406 pp.), Cöln, 1568 (879 pp.), and a copy of a fol. ed., Cologne, 1529 (227 pp.), all with illustrations and marginal notes against Luther. On the concluding page, it is stated that 607 errors of Luther's are noted and corrected. The Cologne ed. of 1529 indicates, on the titlepage, that Luther arbitrarily changed the text according to the Hussite copy. Most editions contain a Preface of Duke George of Saxony, in which he charges Luther with rebellion against all ecclesiastical and secular authority, and identifies him with the beast of the Apocalypse, Rev. 13.
