in less than eleven weeks, he managed to translate Erasmus’ Greek New Testament into German. It took a bit of polishing up before it was ready (and a few illustrations were added, a panorama of Rome next to Revelation’s description of the destruction of Babylon, for example), but amazingly, in that time Luther had produced a masterpiece. The language was so punchy, so colourful, so of the street, that it transformed the very way people spoke German. Luther was becoming the father of the modern German language. More importantly, with its publication in September 1522, Luther realized his dream
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