The nineteenth century has been called the century of bible societies (Risch quoted by Gundert, p. 34). In German-speaking lands alone, some 500 bible societies were established in the nineteenth century. In contrast, in the eighteenth century, there was only one bible society established in German lands, the Canstein Bible Society (Cansteinsche Bibelanstalt) (Heidenreich 2024). What then led to the proliferation of bible societies in the nineteenth century?
One major external influence in the establishment of German bible societies came from the British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS), established in London in 1804. At the establishment of the BFBS a circular was sent out to influential Christians, both theologians and laypeople, in Europe to inform them of the new society, and to encourage them to establish their own bible societies. The BFBS also supplied funds to encourage and support the establishment of bible societies. Thus, already in 1804 the German Bible Society was established through a cooperation of two Bible Societies in German-speaking Basel (Switzerland) and Nuremberg (Franconia). Both of these locations were in the south, meaning that they were not in direct competition with the Canstein Bible Society in the north. Initially, the main seat of the German Bible Society was Nuremberg, however, that changed soon after as the printing was transferred to Basel. In the aftermath of the French invasion of Switzerland, the Basel Bible Society catered to a Swiss audience by publishing French-language bibles for Protestants, who had been affected by the violence. The focus on internal Swiss needs meant that the German-language need for bibles was not adequately covered to the disappointment of many. This desire for bibles was in part a reflection of the pietist movement of the early eighteenth century that placed a focus on bible reading as well as the activities of lay people within religious communities. Moreover, the general desire for education inspired a Christian feeling of responsibility towards the poor and the growth of German religious societies. Thus, when the BFBS was established in 1804 the internal influences on religious people in German lands were such that the BFBS model was easy to replicate. However, before a reorganisation of the German Bible Society could be occur, continental Europe was at war.
1812-1830
With the Napoleonic Wars and the Continental Blockade (Blocus continental) from the end of 1806 to April 1814, communications between England and the continent mostly ceased. In those years, only a few bible societies were established. In 1812, Carl Friedrich Adolf Steinkopf (1773-1849), who was a German theologian and former secretary of the Christian Society (Deutsche Christentumsgesellschaft) in Basel, was able to travel back to continental Europe via Sweden. He was pastor of the Lutheran Church of the Savoy, London, which was the second oldest German-speaking church in Great Britain, being founded in 1694.Steinkopf was also a member of the BFBS as well as other religious societies. On the continent, he visited many of his former contacts in religious circles and persuaded many to establish bible societies, with the financial support of the BFBS and following the model of the BFBS system.
When Napoleon was defeated and the blockage was raised, four men from the BFBS travelled to continental Europe to help establish Bible societies. John Patterson, Robert Pinkerton, Dr. Christian Schwabe (minister of the German Lutheran Church, Goodman’s Fields, London) and Ebenezer Henderson were very effective, with 25 bible societies established in the German states in 1814 alone. The method was to provide funds for the establishment of a bible society firstly in the large cities, then subsequently focusing on the smaller cities. The bible societies were to be ecumenical—some even included Catholics—and were encouraged to be independent societies, rather than assuming subsidiary positions with the BFBS network. Nevertheless, the BFBS was seen by many German bible societies in the early nineteenth centruy as the ‘mother’ society.
There was a perceived need for affordable bibles in the German Confederation, as years of war and blockade had left people without access to the Bible. Added to this was an increased interest in reading the Bible, which had been encouraged by the establishment of a number of religious societies in the early nineteenth century. Despite such interest, the supply of Bibles was quite restricted. The seven larger Bible societies (Canstein, Prussian, Württemberg, Saxon, Bavarian, Schleswig-Holstein and Strassburg) usually printed or had printed their own bibles, while the smaller societies obtained their bibles from these seven or other printers. Initially, bible societies gave away up to a third of all bibles free of charge, as in the case of the Württemberg Bible Society, but by the end of the century this figure had fallen considerably, so that the vast majority of Bibles were purchased (Gundert 1987, p. 172).
In the seven years between 1814-1820, 185 new bible societies were established in the German Confederation. The majority of these bible societies saw themselves as stemming from the BFBS. Unlike the BFBS, however, the German bible societies did not initially see their role as sponsors of foreign language translations of the bible, rather as publishes of languages of the people in their own jurisdictions. This included not only Standard High German (Hochdeutsch), but languages such Polish and Sorbian. The connections to the BFBS were strained and in many cases completely ruptured when in August 1822 the BFBS declared that they would not support the publication of any bibles which included the Apocrypha, that is, the non-canonical writings placed by Luther between the Old and New Testament. Almost all of the German, Swiss, Scandinavian and French bible societies were not prepared to follow this directive and continued to print bibles with the Apocrypha, although without financial support from the BFBS. A few German societies, including those connected to the Moravian Church, agreed to the new conditions. In 1827, the BFBS committee allowed for the New Testament, or the New Testament with Psalms, to be distributed to the bible societies for free, and many German societies took advantage of these publications. However, the majority of German bible societies wished to continue circulating bibles with the Apocrypha and thus relationships with the BFBS were tempered. This resulted in the BFBS establishing around 1830 their own branch and storehouse in Frankfurt from where continental Europe could be supplied with bibles. Such developments ensured that the German bible societies became independent of the BFBS.
The time of more independence
In the period between 1830 and 1848, the year of the March Revolution, over 100 further German bible societies were established. The remit of the German bible societies was predominantly the inner mission, and at times German emigrants in places such North America. The first half of the nineteenth century was also a period in which German foreign Christian missions were beginning to be established. The Danish-Halle-English mission in Tranquebar (Tharangambadi, Tamil Nadu, India) had already been established in the early eighteenth century, followed by Moravian missions from the 1730s. The early nineteenth century would see further German Protestant mission societies be established, such as the Basel mission in 1815, the Goßner mission in 1831 or the Rhenish mission from 1828. A consequence of the increased number of mission societies was that bible societies lost some of their donors, as the former were seen to confront more pressing issues in the conversion of non-Christians than were the Bible societies in their wish to spread Christianity amongst the poor. Mission societies were strongly connected with the translation of the bible into local languages. Yet when it came to the “reduction” of oral languages to written form, German missionaries and missionary societies often relied on funds from the BFBS for the publication of bibles in indigenous languages as German bible societies did not see this as their main task. By the end of the century, when Germany had its own colonies, the fact that German bible societies rarely published foreign language bibles was seen by some religious commentators of the period to be an indication of a lack of German patriotism (Richter 1899, p. 11). A few mother-tongue bibles had been published, for example the Basel Bible Society (Basler Bibelgesellschaft) funded the publishing of the Basel Talu New Testament (China-Tibet) as well as the Ga Bible, and the Württemburg Bible Society (Württemburgische Bibelgesellschaft) supported the publishing of the Duala New Testamen, with the Bremen Bible Society supporting the publication of the Ewe Bible. But there was a belief from some people that German bible societies should do more for German missions, and thus for German colonialism. However, given that from the mid-nineteenth century German mission societies received significantly more public funding than German bible societies, there was also the pressing issue of prioritising bible versions given the limited availability of funding.
Women’s work
Missing from the current blog are female voices. Much of the material used for this blog is taken from the work of Wilhelm Gundert, who wrote the history of the German bible societies in the nineteenth century. Gundert’s work is one of a grand narrative and named men with there being little information on women’s work, or the contributions of non-Europeans to the translation, printing and dissemination of bibles. Partly Gundert explains these omissions due to lack of sources. There were, he states, a number of lady’s bible associations in Germany in the nineteenth century, however, there is scarcely any archival material pertaining to them (Gundert 1987, p. 233). This is in contrast, for example, to the work of British women. According to contemporary reports, there were more than 100 women selling Bibles in London in the early 1860s (Auxiliary Bible Society of New South Wales 1861, p. 5). British scholarship has examined the role of women noting their importance for work of the BFBS (Martin 2004; Lane 2004). Compared to their British counterparts, German women were slower to obtain the franchise, or to be able to earn their own living. Their contributions to public life are also not as often reported on as in Britain. Furthermore, women’s societies and associations often had numerous functions, for example the Female Association for the Poor and Invalids (Weiblichen Verein für Armen- und Krankenpflege) in Hamburg also disseminated bibles, without the word mentioned in their title (Gundert 1987, p. 235). Unlike mission societies, where females working in foreign countries reported on their work to European audiences, thus gaining female supporters (Habermas 2017, p. 507), there were no female role models in the German bible societies. Just because nineteenth century printed sources scarcely mention female actors, this does not mean that they were not working behind the scenes to support bible societies through donations, or through selling bibles. Yet their voices are harder to find in the dominant narratives of the history of bible societies, and thus provide a strong motivation to increase focus on them in our further research.
Sources:
Auxiliary Bible Society of New South Wales, 1861. Empire (Sydney), Tuesday 12 February, p. 5
Gundert, Wilhelm. 1987. Geschichte der deutschen Bibelgesellschaften im 19. Jahrhundert. Bielefeld: Luther-Verlag.
Gundert, Wilhelm. 1987. Festschrift zur Gründung der Privilegierten Württembergischen Bibelanstalt vor 175 Jahren. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft
Habermas, Rebekka. 2017. “Colonies in the Countryside: Doing Mission in Imperial Germany.” Journal of Social History 50, no. 3 (2017): 502–17. http://www.jstor.org/stable/45133237.
Heidenreich, Sven. 2024. “The Cansteinsche Bibelanstalt: The oldest German Bible Society.” In Global Bible: British and German Bible Societies Translating Colonialism, 1800-1914, Blog post. https://globalbible.blogs.bristol.ac.uk/2024/04/19/the-cansteinsche-bibelanstalt-the-oldest-german-bible-society/ (Accessed 11 June 2024)Lane, Sarah. 2004 “Forgotten Labours: Women’s Bible Work and the BFBS.” In Stephen Batalden, Kathleen Cann and John Dean (eds). Sowing the Seed. The Cultural Impact of the British and Foreign Bible Society, 1804-2004 (Phoenix Press: Sheffield), 53-62.
Martin, Roger. 2004. “Women and the Bible Society”, In Stephen Batalden, Kathleen Cann and John Dean (eds). Sowing the Seed. The Cultural Impact of the British and Foreign Bible Society, 1804-2004 (Phoenix Press: Sheffield), 38-52
Richter, Paul. 1899. “Was haben die Bibelgesellschaften für die Mission geleistet?.” Allgemeine Missions-Zeitschrift 26: 11-31.