Textbibel (Kautzsch-Weizsäcker)
de
The Textbibel des Alten und Neuen Testaments appeared in Tübingen from the publisher Mohr in 1899. The Old Testament was edited by the Hebrew scholar Emil Kautzsch (1841 to 1910), the New by the church historian Karl Weizsäcker. Midvash uses the 1906 second edition, the one digitized by eBible.org.
It was a study translation for the educated German reader of 1900. It aims at clear, sober German, without the patina of Luther, and takes into account what textual criticism and philology of the time said about the Hebrew and Greek. The Old Testament follows the Hebrew chapter numbering: Joel has 4 chapters and Malachi 3.
It is best read with open eyes. Kautzsch is known as a biblical critic, and the work comes out of the historical-critical German theology of the late nineteenth century, which often emended the traditional text and rearranged passages. Readers looking for devotional language or the familiar vocabulary of the churches will feel more at home in the Luther Bible 1912, the Elberfelder 1905 or the Schlachter 1951, all also on Midvash. The Textbibel is a companion to them, not a replacement.
The text is in the public domain. Its value lies in showing how a generation of German scholars understood the Bible, and in giving a plainer, less ceremonial reading of the same books.