MARS HILL, N.C. (ABP) — Across the centuries, across the ocean, through bombings and world wars, a sacred bit of history has emerged from the distant past to find a home at Mars Hill College.
The North Carolina Baptist school has received a 1686 copy of Martin Luther's Bible translation. It was donated by Elfriede Ludwig Wilde, a resident of Texarkana, Texas, and former resident of Hendersonville, N.C.
She gave the rare book in memory of her late husband, Harold Wilde, and in honor of the Wilde family of Western North Carolina, where Mars Hill is located.
Elfreide Wilde has been in possession of the Bible since 1967. “The time has come for this Bible to find a new and permanent home, Mars Hill College,” she said, in presenting the gift. “So I am passing on to you as a gift this special book that the Lord has protected again and again for 321 years.”
It is unknown how many copies of the translation still exist. But other aspects of the volume make it valuable, including its sheer size, its ornate drawings, its thick leather binding, and the brass moldings on its cover.
Although the Bible was passed down to Wilde through her family, her husband's ancestry is closely tied to Mars Hill and its environs. Harold Wilde's family has been present in western North Carolina since the late 1700s. The Wilde family was involved in the college's early activities, and was closely tied through marriage to the school's founding Sams family.
Genealogy connected Elfreide Wilde to the school more recently, when she met Darryl Norton, Mars Hill's director of auxiliary services, as part of his personal genealogical research. It was through their friendship that she came to the conclusion that the school and the book would be a good fit for each other. Knowing the history of the college and its Baptist heritage, she decided that the gift of the Bible would be a proper way to honor her deceased husband and his family.
The receipt of such a valuable gift carries with it a solemn duty, according to Mars Hill President Dan Lunsford. “There is every reason to believe that this Bible could have been destroyed many times in the three centuries since its publication,” Lunsford said. “The fact that it has now come to us at Mars Hill College means that we are the custodians of a rare treasure. We therefore owe a duty to those people through whose hands this Bible has passed, to preserve it for all the people of the present and the future who will learn from its pages.”
Believing that God intended the Bible to be accessible to the masses, Martin Luther translated it into vernacular German in the 15th century. The translation was first printed by Johann Andreas Endters, a publishing house in Nuremberg, Germany.
According to Elfreide Wilde, nobody knows who the first owner of this Bible was. It was most likely a nobleman or wealthy merchant, because the average citizen in those days could not afford to own a book, even if he or she could read.
By the 1930s, the Bible had made its way to a suburb of Stuttgart, Germany, where it belonged to a good friend of Wilde's grandfather, known only as Mr. Neff. Her grandfather, Adolf Ludwig, also had an ancient Bible, printed only a few years later than Neff's copy.
Wilde said her father and Neff compared their Bibles often and found that, though the translation of the text was the same, the Bibles had different features. For example, Neff's Bible had an indexed drawing of the city of Jerusalem. It also contained elaborate drawings of several Old Testament characters, including Moses and Elijah, with notations that the drawings were reproduced from “ancient libraries.”
One of the most striking features of Neff's Bible, however, was an unusual and detailed drawing of Noah's Ark by artist Joseph Fuerttenbach. With the drawing is a description of the ark written by Martin Luther.
During the World War II bombings of Stuttgart, more than 60 percent of the city was destroyed, but Neff's house was spared. Even after the Ludwigs moved to the country, they kept in touch with Neff. Occasionally they made the arduous journey into town — by train, by bus and on foot — to see their friend.
Under the regime of Adolf Hitler, many of Germany's religious artifacts were destroyed, but Neff's Bible was spared. When Neff died, Ludwig inquired about his friend's Bible. Like many young Germans following the war, the Neffs' only son had renounced his Lutheran faith. He said Ludwig should get the book if he wanted it because he planned to destroy it.
Despite their war-induced state of malnutrition, Wilde's grandparents carried the large Bible back home — by train, by bus and on foot.
According to Wilde, Ludwig told her that he wanted her to have the Bible after his death. But there was a stipulation. “I had to promise that I would never sell the Bible for profit,” she said. “If I ever should decide to sell it, the money would have to go to the Lord. Even though I encountered hard times in my life, I kept the promise.”
When her grandfather died in 1967, Wilde was living in America, and circumstances prevented her from attending the funeral. Still, her father and a friend in Germany remembered Ludwig's wish for Wilde to have the Bible. They tried to mail it to the United States, but the postmaster refused to accept it, saying that the post office could not insure so valuable an item. Wilde's friend wrote to her, describing the trouble with transporting the Bible. At that point, Wilde assumed the family would donate the Bible to a church in Germany.
About three months later, a large, plain box arrived on Wilde's doorstep with a German customs declaration stating the box contained “old books.” It was her grandfather's Bible, which had traveled, at book rate, by ship from Germany, then over land to Arkansas. There was no indication on the package of insurance or its valuable contents.
Mars Hill officials are currently having the Bible restored. The process is scheduled to be completed in late September or early October.
Wilde said that she and her family made the decision to donate the Bible to Mars Hill College, in part, because they wanted it to be protected. Her wish is also that religion and history students may use the Bible for scholarly research.
Most importantly, Wilde said, she feels that her gift was divinely directed. She believes that, in giving the Bible to Mars Hill, she has followed the leading of God and that she has kept the promise made so many years ago to her grandfather. “This is what he would have wanted, for this Bible to be kept in a place where it would be honored,” she said.
“This Bible has been through so many tribulations, but wherever it has been, it has seemed that there was a protection around it,” she said. “Now, I wish for that protection to rest on Mars Hill College.”
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— Teresa Buckner is media coordinator for Mars Hill College.