The Zurich Bible (''Zürcher Bibel'', also ''Zwinglibibel'') is a

Swiss German Swiss German (Standard German: , ,Because of the many different dialects, and because there is no #Conventions, defined orthography for any of them, many different spellings can be found. and others; ) is any of the Alemannic German, Alemannic ...

Bible translation The Christian Bible has been translated into many languages from the biblical languages of Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. the whole Bible has been translated into 756 languages, the New Testament has been translated into an additional 1,726 lan ...

historically based on the rescensions of

Huldrych Zwingli Huldrych or Ulrich Zwingli (1 January 1484 – 11 October 1531) was a Swiss Christian theologian, musician, and leader of the Reformation in Switzerland. Born during a time of emerging Swiss patriotism and increasing criticism of the Swis ...

. Recent editions have a stated aim of maximal philological exactitude. It is thought to be the first Bible to contain a map.

Froschau Bible

Zwingli's translation grew out of the Prophezey, an exegetical workshop that took place every weekday. All of the clergy of

Zürich Zurich (; ) is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. , the municipality had 448,664 inhabitants. The ...

participated, working at a Swiss German rendition of Bible texts to benefit the congregations. The translation of Martin Luther was used as far as it was completed. The books of the prophets were derived from the 1527 translation of the

Anabaptist Anabaptism (from Neo-Latin , from the Greek language, Greek : 're-' and 'baptism'; , earlier also )Since the middle of the 20th century, the German-speaking world no longer uses the term (translation: "Re-baptizers"), considering it biased. ...

s Ludwig Haetzer and

Hans Denck Hans Denck ( – November 27, 1527) was a German theologian and Anabaptist leader during the Reformation. Biography Denck was born in 1495 in the Bavarian town of Habach. He entered the University of Ingolstadt on October 10, 1517, and graduate ...

. These helped Zwingli to complete the entire translation four years before Luther. The rest of the Old Testament translation is mainly due to Zwingli and his friend Leo Jud, pastor of St. Peter parish. At the printing shop of Christoph Froschauer, the

New Testament The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus, as well as events relating to Christianity in the 1st century, first-century Christianit ...

appeared in print from 1525 to 1529, and later, parts of the

Old Testament The Old Testament (OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew and occasionally Aramaic writings by the Isr ...

. A complete translation in a single volume was first printed in 1530, with an introduction by Zwingli and summaries of each chapter. This ''Froschauer Bible'', containing more than 200 illustrations, was a masterpiece of printing at the time. The translation of the Old Testament was revised in 1540, that of the New Testament in 1574, and verse numbering was introduced in 1589. In 1975, Amos Hoover of

Denver, Pennsylvania Denver is a borough (Pennsylvania), borough in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 3,794 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, a decline from the figure of 3,861 tabulated in ...

, reprinted the 1536 edition, and the 1531 edition appeared under the imprint of the Theologischer Verlag Zürich in 1983.Froschauer Bibles and Testaments

Revisions

Up to 1665, the language of the translation was based on the written variant of

High Alemannic High Alemannic is a branch of Alemannic German spoken in the westernmost Austrian state of Vorarlberg and in Switzerland and Liechtenstein. Intelligibility of these dialects to non-Alemannic speakers tends to be limited. Language area The High ...

(

) used for official documents. In 1665, this was abandoned for the emerging

Standard German Standard High German (SHG), less precisely Standard German or High German (, , or, in Switzerland, ), is the umbrella term for the standard language, standardized varieties of the German language, which are used in formal contexts and for commun ...

of the chancery of the prince-electorate Saxony-Wittenberg.

Fraumünster The Fraumünster (; lit. in ) is a church in Zürich which was built on the remains of a former abbey for aristocratic women which was founded in 853 by Louis the German for his daughter Hildegard. He endowed the Benedictine convent with the l ...

pastor Johann Caspar Ulrich (1705–1768) in the 1755/1756 revision added commentaries, interpretations and concordances. From this edition, the Bible became known as the ''Zwinglibibel''. From 1817, the edition was in the hands of the Zürich Bible and Missionary Society (''Zürcher Bibel- und Missionsgesellschaft''). Another revision dates to 1868, reprinted in 1892.

1931 revision

In 1907, a commission was formed with the purpose of another revision, with the aim of considering as much as possible recent result of biblical scholarship. The revision was completed in 1931, constituting essentially a new translation.

2007 revision

In 1984, on the 500th anniversary of Zwingli's birth, another revision was initiated by the General Synod of the Protestant Reformed Church of the Canton Zürich. However, it soon was decided to undertake a new translation of the entire Bible. At a total cost of four million Swiss francs, the project was completed in early 2007, and the Bible was published in printed and electronic form in June 2007.

References

Online versions

1531 version

1534 version

External links

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1536 Bachman Froschauer Bible
{{DEFAULTSORT:Zurich Bible History of Zurich 1531 books Bible translations into German Huldrych Zwingli