1 of 8

Martin Luther�Open letter on translation

Joana Freire (161085)

Margarida Saraiva (161096)

2 of 8

01

03

02

04

TABLE OF CONTENTS

OPEN LETTER

The words of St Paul in

‘To the Romans’

INTRODUCTION

Martin Luther

TRANSLATION

Martin Luther as a translater

OPEN LETTER

The word ‘sola’

3 of 8

Martin Luther

  • Augustinian monk and theologian
  • German leader of the Refomation – major movement in Western Christianity that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and to the papal authority
  • Translated the New Testament (1522) and the Old Testament (1534)

4 of 8

Martin Luther

as a translator

  • Martin Luther’s most important contribution to translation theory lies in what can be called his “orientation-reader”
  • Strove to express the Bible in words known to all German speaking people
  • Cultivated a “sense for sense” translation, as opposed to a “word for word” translation

5 of 8

  • Open letter on translation (1530) is an important text in the history of translation theory, not only because it is intimately connected to a groundbreaking translation, but further because it manifests vividly how the choice of words and expressions in a translation is sometimes intimately linked to a whole ideological and institutional matrix
  • Why did Luther translate the words of St Paul in ‘To the Romans’, chapter 3, verse 28: ‘Arbitrámur hóminem justificári ex fíde busque opéribus’ into German as: ‘We hold that man is justified not by the works of law but by faith alone’ and the use of the word ‘sola’ which means ‘alone’

6 of 8

Open Letter

st paul in ‘to the romans’

  • ‘Arbitrámur hóminem justificári ex fíde absque opéribus’
  • ‘We hold that man is justified not by the works of law but by faith alone’ – we are justified by faith in Christ, and not by our works of obedience to the law. Faith is an act of the whole inner person (the heart), which is directed to the word of God

�

7 of 8

Open Letter

the word ‘sola’

  • Alone/Allein
  • ‘The farmer brings grain and no money’
  • ‘The farmer brings only grain and no money’

8 of 8

THANK YOU!

History and theory of translation

Lecturer: Zsófia Gombár