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  • Luther Bible: Tower of Babel

  • ca. 1565, German edition ca. 1597
  • Hans Bocksberger (Austrian ca. 1510-1569)
  • Woodblock print
  • 11.0 x 15.5 cm., 4-5/16 x 6-1/8" image
  • Catherine Carter Goebel, Paul A. Anderson Chair in the Arts, Purchase with Gift of Augustana College Art History Alumni in Honor of Dr. Mary Em Kirn, Paul A. Anderson Art History Collection, Augustana College 2006.15

Essay by Richard Priggie, College Chaplain

As citizens of the Information Age, it is impossible for us to imagine a day when everyone did not have access to a printed Bible. Until the invention of the Gutenberg Press in 1455, all books were written or copied by hand and were affordable only to the wealthiest individuals or, in the case of the Bible, the Church. That one of Martin Luther's greatest achievements was the translation of the Bible into his native German fits his egalitarian principle that we are all part of "the priesthood of all believers" and ought therefore have equal access to the Bible.

Exiled to Wartburg Castle by his followers in 1521 for fear of his life, Luther took a mere eleven weeks to complete a translation of the New Testament.

He worked directly from the original Greek text and was aided by notes from the recent Latin translation by Erasmus and by advice from Philip Melanchthon, Luther's closest disciple and a Greek scholar. He completed a translation of the Old Testament in 1524 and was constantly revising his work up to 1546, the year of his death.

Luther's work is by all accounts a free translation of the original, concerned to set the text into vernacular German, that is, to make the text speak to the reader with the same expressions that were used in common discourse. He complained, for instance, about the Latin translation of Psalm 63 that "No German can understand that," so that in his translation, "We now speak clear German." When translating Paul's words about being saved by grace, Luther added the word alone, as in "by grace alone," insisting that this was Paul's intent, even if the word was not in the original.

All translation is thus interpretation, despite protestations by the translator that he is just reproducing the text word-for-word from the original into the vernacular. It is understandable, therefore, that visual art would be paired with the written word in Luther's Bible, as it was from the earliest editions. This woodcut, possibly designed by Hans Bocksberger for the 1597 Luther Bible, is a visual translation of the story from Genesis, chapter 11, that emphasizes the audacity of human striving. The archetypal warrior and king Nimrod (who is not in the Biblical text!) dominates the landscape, literally as tall himself as the Tower behind him, which reaches almost to the clouds. Luther was fond of the medieval aphorism, Quod supra nos, nihil ad nos, "What is above us is none of our business." "Let God be God," he asserted; our proper task is simply to trust God and to love our neighbor in need.

Both in Luther's translation of scripture and in the artist's "translation" of the text, we see the folly of trying to "be like God" (Gen. 3:4) and are encouraged to be human, no more, no less.