Gift recommendation

My son, a junior in college, is minoring in German and has asked for a German Bible for Christmas. Do any of you have recommendations for and version/edition/publisher? I am reasonably sure that he would prefer German only as opposed to German/English.

Find more posts tagged with

Comments

Lynden O. Williams

See if this fits your needs. https://www.logos.com/product/17660/die-bibel-nach-der-ubersetzung-martin-luthers

Another one https://www.logos.com/product/1585/luther-bibel

Still another one https://www.logos.com/product/1586/luther-bibel

NB.Mick

My son, a junior in college, is minoring in German and has asked for a German Bible for Christmas. Do any of you have recommendations for and version/edition/publisher? I am reasonably sure that he would prefer German only as opposed to German/English.

From Lynden's three links, only the first one (Luther 1984) will contain somewhat contemporary German language, the others (older editions of Luther's translation) won't. Luther's translation is rather on the formal equivalence side of the spectrum - which means it may be read alongside a formal equivalent translation in English and this may help figuring out the more complex sentences etc.

But if your son doesn't use Logos, but asks for a paper book, it may be helpful to use a more dynamic equivalent translation that uses less complex (rebuilt Greek, Hebrew and Latin) sentence structures and vocabulary, such as "Hoffnung für alle" (link goes to a more youth-looking cover, there are many more). I'd expect this to be somewhat comparable to the situation that I bought a NLT for my teenage daughter rather than a NKJV (and Lynden's other two links would resemble a KJV with AV / 16th century spelling)

EDIT: Thinking of it, a good place to check out various German (and other) translations would be www.bibleserver.com - they have plenty of translations to choose from, the last entry down the list being an audio bible which enables listening to authentic German (but no Logos-like read-along text karaoke feature).

JT (alabama24)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/550610#Comment_550610

link goes to a more youth-looking cover

Classic. [:)]

Lynden O. Williams

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/550610#Comment_550610

Nice pick NB. Cool cover.

David Borger

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/550610#Comment_550610

Thanks for your suggestions. Ii should have mentioned that my son is not (yet) a Logos user so I am looking for something in hardback or paperback. (He is getting a Kindle for Christmas, too, so I guess that would be another option.)

I spotted Die Bibel: Altes und Neues Testament, Einheitsübersetzung on Amazon. Any thoughts?

NB.Mick

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/550642#Comment_550642

Thanks for your suggestions. Ii should have mentioned that my son is not (yet) a Logos user so I am looking for something in hardback or paperback. (He is getting a Kindle for Christmas, too, so I guess that would be another option.)

I spotted Die Bibel: Altes und Neues Testament, Einheitsübersetzung on Amazon. Any thoughts?

My link for "Hoffnung für Alle" went to Amazon, too. You may check for Einheitsübersetzung on the bibleserver link I gave. My thoughts:

Einheitsübersetzung (EÜ) is the official Roman Catholic translation (as Luther is the official protestant translation). It probably follows the same translation principles and is not bad, but sometimes it's weird - I'm personally using it currently for daily reading and the ecumenical reading plan brought us into Zechariah - it's not the most easy text per se, but I must confess that I as a native German don't comprehend the EÜ text and need to re-read in Luther or HfA.

You may want to know that the EÜ usually comes with some introductions and footnotes that in my opinion don't promote catholicism, but tend to be very influenced by historical criticism (i.e. favor a "liberal" understanding of authorship, unity of texts etc).

What might be of interest, since your son is learning German: Luther is the German bible, used nearly everywhere. Quotations in a cultural context will tend to come from Luther (e.g. a film shows a funeral and the pastor recites Ps. 23). Luther is ideally suited for learning verses by heart. While no other translation will match Luther 100%, in case of the EU the difference even goes into names: EÜ will give biblical names in the catholic version, whereas otherwise (including in extra-biblical, cultural context) people will tend to use the names as to be found in the various protestant bible editions, so Germans will tend to speak and write of Hiob (and there's a German word "Hiobsbotschaft" for devastatingly bad news), but the EÜ will spell him Ijob.