Wednesday, June 14, 2006

The Bible Our Switzerland Ancestors Used.


The Bible our Anabaptist ancestors used in Switzerland was known as the Froschauer Bible. Christoph Froschauer was a printer in Zurich, Switzerland, in the 16th century. His earliest publications were dated 1521, and he began printing the New Testament in 1524. Froschauer based his New Testament primarily on the translation of the New Testament into German by Martin Luther, editing word order and dialect to match the vernacular German spoken by the Swiss people of that region.
A few years later, in 1529, Froschauer finished his printing of the complete Bible, using the Old Testament translations by Anabaptist scholars Ludwig Haetzer and Hans Denk, since Luther had not completed his translation of the Old Testament. This Bible was very popular and much loved among Anabaptists because of its dialect; it was easier for the common Swiss citizen to understand than, for example, the High German of Luther’s translation. Because so many Froschauer Bibles were confiscated and destroyed by Swiss Authorities, there became a shortage of this very popular translation. In 1744, the publisher Simon Kurssner, Cantzley-Buchdrucker, of Strasbourg, reprinted the complete 1536 edition of the Bible originally printed in Zurich by Froschauer.
The old Froschauer Bible, published at Zurich in the time of Luther, is still widely used by the Amish, as it is by the Mennonites.

Loren Beachy prime instigator


Loren Beachy, of rural Mt. Pleasant, the prime instigator in getting Henry County to join the worldwide hunger fight, was in one of two combines harvesting the crop.
Surrounding the Goodyear plant, which donated the use of the land for the food plot, the ground yielded an average of 103 bushels per acre. Young noted, "It's pretty good considering how dry it has been." It took just 150 minutes for the two combines to cover the 25 acres.
A total of 17 Henry County commercial and non-profit organizations participated in the Foods Resource Bank project in 2005. Local organizers are hoping to have a bigger plot next year with more people involved.