See this post regarding the experiment that led to this translation: AI Translation Demo – “About The Name Lutheran”

The translation is captured in .pdf format here: About_The_Name_Lutheran_Nispel2026

The translation text is reproduced here:

ON THE NAME “LUTHERAN” C.F.W. Walther

Der Lutheraner, Volume 1, Nos. 1–4 (1 September – 13 October 1844)

Brand-new Grok 2026 Translation from Raw 1844 German OCR With endnotes at ambiguous or difficult passages, expanded glossary, your original translator’s notes, and fresh historical context.

AI Technology, Society, Application to Lutheran and Late Antiquity Scholarship

AI (Artificial Intelligence) is all the current rage. It is a large subject from its technical aspects to the many applications it is finding. It is already disrupting many big tech companies and their expensive software engineering staffs. But it is likely to disrupt many other industries and companies over the coming years.

Having myself applied this tool in my work place, it is amazing in the way it can change a technical workflow and for some tasks 10x improvement in productivity is no lie. Watching the better AI models build, deploy, test, debug, and do it again in a cycle by itself until it reaches a solution and accomplish something in 10 minutes it would have taken you hours to do, is remarkable. And it is probably SW engineers who see and feel this most intensely right now as it is their jobs which are directly in the line of site.

What better way to explain AI than to have AI explain itself?

**** Summary from Grok - 2026**

EDITED BY (@ai_lutheran)

Here is a high-level summary which draws on current research (March 2026) for clear, accessible explanations and vendor insights—ideal for @ai_lutheran or mdnispel.work projects focused on AI research, multilingual summaries/translations, and research on the formation and degradation of western civilization.

Understanding Artificial Intelligence: Key Definitions and Top Players in 2026

An Essay in Handiwork of MDNispel Mark D. Nispel, PhD

Get the pdf with citations and footnotes here:

In 313 CE the Roman Emperor Constantine along with his imperial colleague issued the Edict of Milan and established the legal basis for the toleration of Christianity within the Roman Empire, both East and West. This event served as a critical component of what can be called the “Rise of Christendom”. “Christendom” here means “the portion of the world in which Christianity is the dominant religion”. As such this word ‘Christendom’ includes within it an aspect of demographics, that is, being a dominant religion among a population, and also, an aspect of geography, a region or combination of regions where this religion is dominant among the population. Taken together these two aspects indicate ‘Christendom’ must relate to the governing system of the people and the region involved. A religion can not become dominant in a geographic region without attracting the attention of governing authorities. There must be either implicit or explicit toleration. The Edict of Milan was a new statement of explicit tolerance for Christianity by the political establishment of the Roman empire. It ended state sanctioned repression and persecution of Christians. As has been said before: “Christ founded Christianity, but Constantine founded Christendom.” And the history of the west was changed forever. But what did the Christian interactions with established society look like before 313 CE?

CFW Walther

Source Document: The Google Books scan and OCR source from Google Books:

Hathi Trust Archive: https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/003905830

.pdf of the Translation with footnotes etc.:

My 2019 translation pdf: WaltherConcerningtheNameLutheran._MDNispel1989Revised2019

This translation as revised in 2019 is available also online from other websites such as:

https://ctsfw.net/media/pdfs/WaltherConcerningtheNameLutheran.pdf

Translated by Mark Nispel From: Der Lutheraner 1 (1844):2-4, 5-7, 9-12 PDF June 2019

[Translator’s Note: This translation was first presented in the Husker Lutheran of University Lutheran Chapel, Lincoln, NE in 1989 and has now been entirely reviewed and revised].

Masters Thesis - University of Nebraska 1997 and related work

Thesis

I Said, ‘You are gods’" Salvation as Deification and the Early Patristic use of Psalm 82

Derived Article

Nispel, Mark D. “Christian Deification and the Early Testimonia”, Vigiliae Christianae 53, 3 (1999): 289-304, doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/157007299X00037

Available back issue:

Christian Deification and the Early Testimonia

Get the article including citations and footnotes:

Original pdf: Made-Without-Hands.pdf

In this paper I will identify several monotheistic and monergistic verbal expressions from the Hebrew Old Testament. I will then demonstrate that these ideas and phrases interacted and developed over time via a series of linguistic steps which led ultimately to the creation of a specific Greek word by early Christian communities. This word was used to describe the role of God’s power in several aspects of Christian salvation. Specifically, this article examines the origin and usage of the early Christian word ἀχειροποίητος, ‘made without (human) hands.’

The shortest fables are usually the sharpest. Fable 128 of Laura Gibbs’s Mille Fabulae et Una — Simius et Speculum, “The Monkey and the Mirror” — is eight Latin sentences long, and it tells the entire history of self-deception in eight sentences.¹ An ape who has never seen himself mistakes his reflection for a different animal. He laughs at it. He jeers at it. He even compliments the mirror-maker on a fine piece of work. Then a bystander tells him the truth, and in a single line the whole scene reverses: Heus, te ignoras? Tua est ipsa haec imago — “Listen, don’t you know yourself? That image is yours.” The fable ends with the ape attacking the mirror.

As a demonstration of a translating ai workflow and the current capabilities of some of the leading platforms / models for academic or language type work, I present the workflow I just completed for having ai re-translate the article “Von dem Namen Lutheraner”.

See also: Blog post introducing this project

NOTE: my own hand translated 2019 version is here with links to the original source:

Concerning the Name Lutheran

Step 1 -> The Original Source Document

I have the original source document as an 1844 printed text. This was the source for the original 1989 and 2019 translations.

As a second demonstration of an AI translation workflow, I present the project completed for the 1854 article “Sollen die Apokryphen des Alten Testaments ferner den Bibeln beigebunden werden oder nicht?” (“Should the Apocrypha of the Old Testament Continue to Be Bound with Bibles or Not?”), published in Der Lutheraner, Vol. 10, No. 11, St. Louis, January 17, 1854.

See also: Blog post introducing this project

The workflow follows the same pattern as the first AI translation demo, applied here to a previously untranslated Lutheran periodical article on a topic of continuing interest: the proper place of the Apocrypha in Lutheran theology and practice.