By the end of the Middle Ages, only priests and highly educated people (not necessarily synonymous) could read and understand Latin. Now new translations were needed in the languages ordinary people spoke, particularly since the Protestant Reformation had restored the Bible to the central place in the life of the Christian.
When a group of Martin Luther's friends spirited him off into hiding, at a time when his life was in danger, they probably had no idea that their concern for his safety would result in one of the most influential of all Biblical translations. Luther, hidden in the Wartburg Castle, used his time of enforced leisure to translate the New Testament into German ( 1522), just as later on he did the Old Testament ( 1534).
The German people had not had the full Bible in their own tongue before this time, and Luther did his translation in such a way that the Bible became a living book that they could understand. Instead of making a wooden literal translation, he tried to get the flavor of the events, so that people could imagine them taking place in their own locality. There were robbers on the road between Jerusalem and Jericho-it must have been just as dangerous as going through the Black Forest at night! When Luther translated Ps. 46 ("God is our refuge and strength") he conveyed this idea by conjuring up the picture of a strong medieval castle with thick walls, a wide moat, safe and strong and protecting, and gave the psalm the subtitle, "A mighty fortress is our God." The Germans knew what that meant! To make sure that they could understand the sacrificial requirements in Leviticus correctly, Luther checked the material with his butcher.
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