Monday, April 03, 2006

A Modest Proposal Update



I got a number of emails concerning my "modest proposal" post and thought I would list two comments that I thought raised valid points

"Now, the only thing I would caution you about is not to quickly dismiss the 1584 Latin.This was in fact received by the German Lutheran church as a truly authoritative text, that is to say, an edition that was received as nearly as equal an authority as the German. In fact, the 1584 was intentionally prepared after an earlier botched job was rejected. When it was published the only thing they did NOT do was to print the over 8,000 names of people who subscribed it because they did not think it fair to all these people to put their names on something they had all not personally had a chance to read, but...the Latin text did and was an authoritative text and used as such for many, many years in the Lutheran Church."

My favorite email stated "that the 1580 German BOC and its authoritative 1584 Latin translation ARE in fact the texts to which people subscribed and pledged themselves and the form in which they accepted the Lutheran Confessions. In fact, you may want to add to your article this VERY important point. The Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod Articles of Incorporate refer *pointedly* to the 1580 German Book of Concord...and...even more important...the new hymnal coming out in its Agenda, in the ordination and installation rites for all church workers, pastors and teachers, pledge them to the 1580 Book of Concord, by date. Whereas, in the previous Agenda, it just said "Lutheran Confessions" and "Book of Concord."."

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