The Wartburg Project

“The Wartburg Project” is a group of Lutheran pastors and professors who are working together to produce a new translation of the Bible.

Dr. John Brug, Professor of Systematic Theology and Old Testament at Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary is serving as the general editor and Old Testament editor, and Rev. Brian Keller, Pastor at St. Stephen Evangelical Lutheran Church, Adrian, MI is serving as the New Testament editor. So far, we have twelve translators working on producing drafts of the Old Testament, and fourteen translators producing drafts of the New Testament. We are blessed with roughly double that number of technical reviewers, who review and examine the text for accuracy on the basis of  the original Hebrew and Greek. One example is Professor-emeritus David Kuske of Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary, who is helping us determine the best New Testament manuscript evidence and serving as a translator/technical reviewer. We are pleased to be working with around 90 participants and counting. They come from the ELS and all 12 districts of the WELS.

The product to be produced by the Wartburg Project could best be called a translation/revision. Although our translation will be based on the Hebrew and Greek texts, templates are being used as a starting point in the translation process. This will build on the tradition of English and Lutheran Bible translation. The primary resources, of course, are the original Hebrew and Greek texts. We are standing on the shoulders of giants, making use of the World English Bible (WEB), which is a descendant of the King James Version (KJV) and the American Standard Version (ASV). We are also grateful to Concordia Publishing House and Northwestern Publishing House for making their Lutheran translations available to us.

Sample books published: Matthew and Psalms are both available on amazon.com on the Kindle format. These are not “final” versions. E.g., Matthew has been revised, based on the input received.


We have the privilege of having Professor Brug preach for our Reformation service on November 2 and then lead the Bible study to teach us about The Wartburg Project. To learn more about the Wartburg Project, please visit www.wartburgproject.org.

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