Ein Buch mit sieben Siegeln

The Bible contains a treasure of popular sayings. These include, for example, "to laugh in one's sleeve," "to have one's hair stand on end," and "to swim against the tide." Martin Luther and his team of translators made good use of these expressions to vividly translate the biblical original languages in a way that resonated with the common people. Sayings are fixed word combinations within a language community. They reflect attitudes and behaviors, simplify communication, and make linguistic expressions more appealing. This work presents 350 sayings from Luther's Bible. It explains their meaning in the context of the biblical text and illustrates their influence on the German language with examples from literary works (fiction, song lyrics, philosophy, history).