An Open Letter on Translating

In 1530, Martin Luther wrote a fiery defense of his German Bible translation, and in doing so, ignited a revolution in how we think about language itself. The spark was a single word: "sola," meaning "alone," which Luther inserted into his translation of Romans 3:28 to capture what he believed was St. Paul's essential point about justification by faith. Catholic critics pounced. Luther responded with this open letter, and what emerges is one of the most passionate arguments ever written about the translator's art. He argues that fidelity to meaning matters more than literal word-count; that the German common people deserve scripture they can *feel* in their bones; that scholarly Greek and Latin have obscured rather than illuminated God's word for centuries. This is Luther at his most personal, most combative, most brilliant, defending not just a translation but an entire philosophy of language as a living thing that must serve the living faithful. Six centuries later, his German Bible still shapes the language. His arguments about translation still shape how we think about bringing words across borders, across centuries, across minds.