A LOT of worthless gasbags make their living parsing words from 500 Years Ago without disclosing that the vernacular and meaning words have changed in that period. They assign interpretations, and sometimes put [unspoken] words in the mouth of people.
If you don't believe me, go try to read something in old or middle English. Ostensibly the SAME language, but totally incomprehensible.
" For it is not fitting that they should let us accursed Goyim toil in the sweat of our faces while they, the holy people, idle away their time behind the stove, feasting and farting., and on top of all, boasting blasphemously of their lordship over the Christians by means of our sweat. No, one should toss out these lazy rogues by the seat of their pants. "
"feasting and farting behind the stove," You've got to admit, that's still funny.
“If you don’t believe me, go try to read something in old or middle English. Ostensibly the SAME language, but totally incomprehensible.”
Having read both I can tell you that they are not “Ostensibly the SAME language”. Luther wrote some pretty damning things about Jews. To discuss these things today is not just “parsing words” by “worthless gasbags”.
Good or ill, Luther wrought a religious revolution that destroyed the social and religious order of his day. Christendom was irrevocably changed. That’s worth discussing in every detail to those who are interested in the truth and history.
So the words, “First, their synagogues should be set on fire...Secondly, their homes should likewise be broken down and destroyed....” have changed their meaning over the years?
Yes, Martin Luther was an anti-Semite! This is one of the reasons that those who view the letters to the seven churches as depicting the arc of Church history, identify the Reformation with the letter to the church in Sardis, the dead church! Jesus didn’t have one good thing to say about it.
Revelation 3
1 “To the angel of the church in Sardis, write this:
“‘The one who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars says this: “I know your works, that you have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead.
2 Be watchful and strengthen what is left, which is going to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God.
3 Remember then how you accepted and heard; keep it, and repent. If you are not watchful, I will come like a thief, and you will never know at what hour I will come upon you.
4 However, you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their garments; they will walk with me dressed in white, because they are worthy.
5 “‘“The victor will thus be dressed in white,* and I will never erase his name from the book of life but will acknowledge his name in the presence of my Father and of his angels.
6 “‘“Whoever has ears ought to hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”’
It doesn’t matter if he was God uses flawed vessels mightily all the time Thank God He does because none of us are perfect. Whatever Luthers faults they have no bearing on the facts of the Reformation.
Good point! That is so true!
For instance,
"I would slap his [the Jew's] face and, if I could, fling him to the ground and, in my anger, pierce him with my sword”--- means much different today. In today's language, the meaning is "Allahu Akbar."
Much of the most dangerous Holocaust language had a surprisingly long history in Germany.
Karl Marx used the expression “The Jewish Question” in the 1840s.
And Kaiser Wilhelm II, in his personal correspondence, used the expression “a final solution to the Jewish Question” in the 1890s.
In my opinion, much of the Jew hatred during Luther's lifetime seems to be based on working class envy that a relatively large number of Jewish men were successfully employed in “white collar” occupations.