German Bible Societies – Global Bible

The Establishment of German Bible Societies in the nineteenth century

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?

Figure 1: Establishment of German Bible Societies in nineteenth century (number per year). Data from Gundert 1987.

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.

The Cansteinsche Bibelanstalt: The oldest German Bible Society

Administrator all, Bible societies April 19, 2024April 19, 2024Bible translation, German Bible Societies 0 Comment

Title page of the 20th edition of the Canstein Bible, pubished in Halle 1728. Image: Bible Museum, Münster.

by Sven Heidenreich, Student Research Assistant

When people think of the systematic translation and distribution of the Bible, the British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS) certainly comes to mind. It was the largest of all Bible Societies in the nineteenth century. Originally founded in 1804, it set itself the task of bringing the Bible in the local language and at a low price to people who were normally dependent on the interpretation of the Bible by the clergy. These ideas were not limited to the English-speaking world.

The history of German Bible societies, which pursued very similar goals to the British counterparts, is less researched and therefore less known. This is slightly surprising given that the first German Bible Society was established in 1710, almost a century before the BFBS. The Cansteinsche Bibelanstalt had the aim of producing low-cost Bibles for the masses, just as the BFBS would later do.

The Reformation movement is an important historical background to the founding of German Bible Societies. During that period, in addition to rejecting the sale of indulgences, the elitist interpretation of the Bible was also criticized. Before the Reformation, Bibles were almost exclusively in Latin, which few people could read, write, or even understand. Although Martin Luther’s (1483-1546) translation of the Bible was printed and sold in German in 1534, it remained too expensive for most people to afford. Furthermore, after the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648), the availability and ownership of Bibles significantly decreased. The religious historian Wilhelm Gundert (1987) estimates that in Protestant territories, there was only one Bible for every 70 inhabitants.

Before the Reformation, the general population were dependent on the interpretations and readings of the Catholic clergy in order to learn the Word of God. Yet, in the post-Reformation environment some people strove to change this. One important person was Baron Karl Hildebrand von Canstein (1667-1719), who wished for the Bible to be more accessible. Although von Canstein is often associated with the idea of Bible societies, he himself referred to similar endeavours in the Netherlands, where the idea of using standing type (in German Stehsatz or Schiebesatz) to reduce printing costs was already in practice. Inspired by the desire to make the Bible accessible, he outlined his ideas for a Bible society in his 1710 pamphlet “Ohnmaßgeblicher Vorschlag / Wie GOTTES Wort den Armen zur Erbauung um einen geringen Preis in die Hand zu bringen” (Authoritative Proposal / How to bring the Word of God into the hands of the poor for their edification at a low price).

In order to underscore his agenda, von Canstein quoted Jesus from the Gospel of Luke 11: 52: “Woe to you experts in the law, because you have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves have not entered, and you have hindered those who were entering.” Accordingly, no profit was to be made from the sale of the Bibles, as this would undermine the integrity of the organisation, which saw itself as a successor to the apostles.

The brief interpretation of Col. 3:17 (“Let the word of Christ dwell among you richly in all wisdom”) that von Canstein used in the introduction of his 1710 pamphlet illustrates the ideals of the project and as such can be seen as one of the foundational principles on which all subsequent Bible societies were to be built. The original proposal discussed the extent to which the appeal for donations should be used to print and distribute the Bible and insisted that the funds were not to be used to improve the material conditions of the poor. Furthermore, plans to translate the Bible into other languages were also discussed. However, as the printing of the Bible was already an expensive undertaking this idea was not realised.

Von Canstein followed up the agenda in his pamphlet with a call for participation and an appeal for donations, to ensure that at least some of the Christian teachings reached the poorer sections of the population. Although the appeal for donations was only moderately successful, the funds were sufficient to get the project off the ground. On 21 October 1710, the first ‘Canstein’ Bible was printed in the printing house of the Frankesche Stiftungen and orphanage in Halle. Halle itself was a centre for Pietism, a movement within Lutheranism that focused on biblical doctrine and individual Christian piety. Initially, a specially printed version of the New Testament was to be sold for two Groschen. As soon as the capital for a standing set of the entire Bible was available, the complete Bible was to be sold for ten Groschen. Although the institution that printed the Bibles was known as the Cansteinsche Bibelanstalt, the establishment of the institution was not von Canstein’s work alone, rather he benefited from the support of the Pietist theologian August Hermann Francke (1663-1727) and his colleague Heinrich Julius Elers (1667-1728), who both were integral to the development and realisation of the proposal.

Von Canstein was needed not only as a financial backer, but also as a prominent figure to inform the public about the project and to provide legitimacy for the project. The daily operation also required a well-thought-out organisation that had to reconcile the goal of disseminating Bibles to as many people as possible at a reasonable price with the difficulties of running a not-for-profit organisation. For example, the booksellers who were commissioned to sell the Canstein Bibles for the fixed price now had to forfeit the turnover that could be achieved with the regular sale of, for example, commercial versions of the Bible. In addition, the number of Bibles sold had to be monitored in order to estimate the next printing orders. The Cansteinsche Bibelanstalt thus required a well conceptualised network of different agents particularly. These included typesetters who transformed corrections of the Luther Bible into printed form, and various booksellers who were necessary for storage and sales. Moreover, as the demand grew, more printing presses beyond that at the Franckesche Stiftungen were included in the network as that one alone could hardly cope with the great demand for cheap Bibles on its own. Threats of bankruptcy hung over the Cansteinsche Bibelanstalt, resulting in the need to constantly raise more funds. Amongst other things, this financially precarious situation meant that the plans to translate the Bible into other languages could not be realised.

One could speculate that if the Cansteinsche Bibelanstalt had been able to realise the project of translating the Bible into other languages, it would have assumed a similar significance for the eighteenth century as the BFBS did for the nineteenth century. The latter provided the decisive impetus for the increased founding and networking of Bible societies outside England, as it was able to offer financial and organisational support.

Yet, even without publishing foreign Bibles, the Cansteinsche Bibelanstalt made a significant impact on the German religious landscape. By 1800, more than 2.7 million Bibles and New Testaments had been printed in the German lands alone. Moreover, the establishment of the Cansteinsche Bibelanstalt in the early eighteenth century was a model for other Bible societies in the nineteenth century to follow, with the idea of making Bibles affordable to all being a driving force behind subsequent Bible societies.

Sources:

Gundert, Wilhelm (1987): Geschichte der deutschen Bibelgesellschaften im 19. Jahrhundert, Bielefeld: Luther-Verlag

Howsam, Leslie (1991) Cheap Bibles: Nineteenth-century Publishing and the British and Foreign Bible Society (Cambridge Studies in Publishing and Printing.

Schicketanz, Peter (2001): Carl Hildebrand Freiherr von Canstein. Leben und Denken in Quellendarstellungen, Tübingen: Verlag der Franckeschen Stiftungen Halle