The first volumes of the "American Luther" we selected for publicationwere his best commentaries, then eight volumes of his Gospel andEpistle sermons and one volume of his best catechetical writings.These rich evangelical works introduced us to the real Luther, not thepolemical, but the Gospel Luther. They contain the leaven of thefaith, life and spirit of Protestantism. We now return to hisspiritual commentaries on the Bible which are the foundation of allhis writings. The more one reads Luther the greater he becomes as astudent of the One Book.
This, the second volume of Luther's great commentary on Genesis,appears now in English for the first time.
It covers chapters four to nine inclusive of Genesis. The subjectsdiscussed are: Cain's murder, his punishment, Cain's sons, Seth andhis sons, the wickedness of the old world, the ark, Noah's obedience,the universal destruction, the salvation of Noah's family, hissacrifice, his blessing, the rainbow covenant, Noah's fall, Ham cursedand Shem and Japheth blessed. These great themes are discussed byMoses and Luther. They have vital relations to problems pertaining tothe end of the modern world. Our hope and prayer are that God may usethis volume to make the book of Genesis and the whole Old Testament agreater spiritual blessing to the Church and that it may serve theservants of God in these latter days in calling people to repentance,faith and prayer like Noah and Luther did.
In his "Dear Genesis" Luther proved that the free Evangelical religionhe taught was not new, but as old as the first book of the Bible, andthat it does not consist in outward forms, organizations and pomp, butin true faith in Christ in our hearts and lives. Genesis contains theonly historic records accessible of the first 2364 years of the 4004years before Christ. It is worthy of study in our day as it was in thedays of the Reformation.
Luther advised no one should translate alone and he practiced what hetaught. We have followed his rule and example. Pastor C. B. Gohdes ofBaltimore translated chapter six and President Schaller of MilwaukeeTheological Seminary, chapters five, seven, eight and nine.
Inaccuracies may be due to the revision and editing, and not to thetranslators, for every good translation must be fluent and idiomatic,to secure which is the most difficult task. Pastor Gohdes alsorendered valuable help in the final revision of parts. The translationof the analyses is by the undersigned.
The few last pages of the first edition of volume one we revised andreprint in this volume in order to make the pages of each volume ofour edition to