Berlin, Germany, Sep 15, 2005 / 22:00 pm
Ecumenical cooperation in Germany has experienced “a bitter setback” after it was made public last Thursday that German Protestants rejected a joint project to revise the standard German translation of the Bible with the Catholic Church, reported Vatican Radio.
German Catholics and Protestants produced the current standard German Bible in the 1980s and have since been using it in ecumenical services.
But the Vatican expressed the intention to revise the standard German Bible, issuing directives requiring the revision to conform to the Latin translation of the Bible. The Protestants, instead, prefer translation to conform to the original Hebrew and Greek biblical texts.
"This directive has criteria that the Protestant side cannot accept," said Lutheran Bishop Wolfgang Huber, chairperson of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany, according to Reuters.