Talk:A Mighty Fortress Is Our God

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Psalm 46 Verse 9: He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; he burneth the chariot in the fire.

The Mighty Fortress Luther speaks of is one of pacifism! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.6.30.192 (talk • contribs).

Umm... I don't get what this has to do with the hymn... Luther is after the point of the whole Psalm, which is that God is a place of refuge in times of trouble, so a child of God does not need to be afraid. --CTSWyneken(talk) 17:51, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Other Translations

Just a comment. Three english translations are mentioned in the passage, but only one is given. The Lutheran Book of Worship has this translation:

A mighty fortress is our God,
A sword and shield victorious.
He breaks the cruel oppressor's rod
And wins salvation glorious.
The old satanic foe
Has sworn to work us woe.
With craft and dreadful might
He arms himself to fight.
On Earth he has no equal.

No strength of ours can match his might.
We would be lost, rejected.
But now a champion comes to fight,
Whom God Himself elected.
You ask who this may be.
The Lord of Hosts is He.
Christ Jesus, mighty Lord,
God's only son, adored,
He holds the field victorious.

Though hordes of devils fill the land,
All threatening to devour us,
We tremble not! Unmoved, we stand;
They cannot overpower us.
Let this world's tyrants rage;
In battle we'll engage!
His might is doomed to fail,
God's judgement must prevail-
One little word subdues him.

God's Word forever shall abide,
No thanks to foes who fear it,
For God himself fights by our side
With weapons of the Spirit.
Were they to take our house,
Goods, honor, child or spouse,
Though life be wrenched away,
They cannot win the day;
The Kingdom's ours forever.
Yeah, this is the one that I know. -Maaya まあや 17:07, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
I'm still not sure if we're supposed to put full texts of the hymn in Wikipedia. It seems that the rules discourage it. In any case, I believe this version is still protected by copyright, while the others are not. --CTSWyneken(talk) 17:51, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott

Shouldn't this page: Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott be a part of this page? -Maaya まあや 17:09, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

I think I've tidied it up. The spelling is wrong (eine Burg or ein' Burg, but not ein Burg). I've added the Bach categories to this article, and made that article a redirect here. — Gareth Hughes 18:18, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
Thanks! I happened to search 'feste Burg' and it was the first thing that came up, but I was here a few months ago and had looked at this particular article (A Mighty Fortress is Our God) and what surprised to see all the info that I remembered had disappeared. Glad to see that it hadn't, really. -Maaya まあや 23:10, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Composition Date

According to the German Wikipedia page for Ein' feste Burg ist unser Gott, this hymn was written and composed in 1529. This date would convey much more precisely when the hymn was created, and it would not be gathered from deductions about the manner in which hymns were published during this time period.

Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott ist ein Kirchenlied, das 1529 von Martin Luther geschrieben und komponiert wurde. [1] —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Dwspig2 (talk • contribs).

I'm not sure where the German encyclopedia gets the date. The info in this article comes directly from scholarly commentary in the cited sources. Since there is uncertainty in the literature, we need to reflect it in the article. --CTSWyneken(talk) 00:37, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Earliest extant version?

The article cites John Julian, according to whom the earliest extant version is Andrew Rauscher's 1531 book; however, here they give an earlier date: "The oldest extant copy of the hymn is found in Form und Ordnung Gaystlicher Gesang und Psalmen, Augsburg, 1529 (Skaar, 1879; Nutzhorn, 1911)." Fact-checking needed. --Tgr 07:13, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

If a moment presents itself, it's worth checking. I tend to give Julian the benefit of a doubt, since his is the most respected hymn resource in the English language. --CTSWyneken(talk) 11:26, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
According to Julian (John Julian, A Dictionary of Hymnology: Setting Forth the Origin and History of Christian Hymns of All Ages and All Nations rev. ed. London: John Murray, 1908, 323 the earliest printing was Klug's Gesang Buch, Wittenberg, 1529. --CTSWyneken(talk) 18:23, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Some Suggestions from a Hymnologist

I asked a hymnologist what he thought of the article, he says:

I think most of what needs to be there is there. The Carlyle translation would be a nice addition. The Hedge is required. The history and musicology look good. How about more in the way of religious or theological interpretation? --CTSWyneken(talk) 19:01, 23 May 2007 (UTC)


agree about the religious/theological interpretation. One concern I have -- I am afraid that a GA nom would be rejected because of the amount of primary text included. I would suggest moving the public-domain text to wikisource, and linking to it as necessary. Pastordavid 19:18, 23 May 2007 (UTC) (and welcome back)
Thanks! I think the limited time I've got for the near future is going to keep me more in side articles for awhile. On this one, I initially had the same question, but it appears that hymns are treated differently. If a few secs present themselves, I'll check the GA list for other hymn articles and see what I find. --CTSWyneken(talk) 19:38, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Other Hymn Articles

I have yet to find a GA class hymn. What I am finding is that just about every hymn article contains the lyrics. --CTSWyneken(talk) 19:53, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Comparable to Poetry?

I think we may find similar approaches to this subject matter in case of poems. I just did a quick look and found I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud. It links to Wikisource for the text of the poem and discusses issues about it in the article itself. Sounds like a reasonable approach, until we find good GA guidelines, saying otherwise. Awolf002 22:32, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WikiSource

I have added three sister projects links to the public domain texts: the original German, the Hedge translation, and the Lutheran Church book translation. Pastordavid 16:48, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Great! I propose to drop the lengthy quotes under Lyrics and move the WikiSource reference into that section. We could then add some background to the translations in that section. Awolf002 02:04, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Sounds good. Pastordavid 19:48, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Infobox

Does anyone know if there is an infobox for hymns? If not, should we create one? Pastordavid 17:34, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea. I only found a general song (= modern music industry song) infobox: Template:Song infobox. I would volunteer to create a Template:Hymn infobox derived form this template, if somebody could give me a list of necessary "items", like "first published date" or "metric signature" or whatever is needed. Awolf002 02:17, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
I put up a first trial version of a Hymn infobox. Please comment or improve. Awolf002 18:05, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
I have moved it to {{Infobox Hymn}} for consistency with other music infoboxes. (The song infobox template was recently moved to {{Infobox Song}}.) --PEJL 17:12, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The Lead

The lead to the article is a little weak. Anyone care to take a stab at improving it? Pastordavid 17:35, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Please DO NOT REMOVE the Hedge Rendition of the Hymn

I have been using it at my church!

I DO NOT understand your changes.

Pastor B Pena

You are misinterpreting the changes to this article. The text was not removed, but relocated to its proper place at the Wikisource project. Please, use the link in this article to see the Hedge translation. Awolf002 (talk) 14:54, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Song in german

Very nice article. I just want to write, that the song-file in which someone sings the hymn in german is not easy to understand, because the singer seams to be american and not german. So some words are not pronounced like germans do or the word-melody is not right, so that native speakers notice that the singer not understand what he is singing. Maybe it`s better to take another version of the hymn. I know, that the german wikipedia also takes this one, but that does not mean, that it`s perfect ;) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.143.110.200 (talk) 03:29, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, and the link below the button says that the isometric version is the "more widely known arrangement," a claim which may be POV. Prove it. The Hedge translation is more prevalent in English-language hymnals, particularly in the United States, and its metrical pattern fits naturally with the non-isometric six-note line.
If old Martin's spirit is hovering around us, he is probably amazed to see us debating the details of his hymn. Finding "Ein' feste Burg" in Roman Catholic hymnals this side of Vatican II would probably take him on out.
Richard David Ramsey 00:02, 30 January 2008 (UTC)