After The Bible, This Is One Of The Most Important Books In Amish Homes. It’s Getting A New Translation

Martyrs Mirror, a massive tome telling the stories of 16th-century Anabaptist martyrs, along with earlier Christian ones, is one of the most important books in Amish homes. Now it’s getting a new translation – this time straight from the 1685 Dutch, replacing English that dates to 1886.

Hat tip to Al in KY who brought this story in Anabaptist World to my attention. In it, Eileen Kinch writes:

It is the “Martyrs Mirror for the new reader,” said James K. Nolt at a public meeting Aug. 4 at the Martindale Fellowship Center in Ephrata, Pa. Readers today need an appropriate translation to inspire, to point them to Christ Jesus and to see examples of faithful lives, he said.

The new edition is being translated directly from the 1685 Dutch edition. Translator Lydia Penner, who previously worked on Documents of Brotherly Love: Dutch Mennonite Aid to Swiss Anabaptists, is working on the project, along with Robert Riall of the Old Order Amish.

The best known of the Anabaptist martyr stories is that of Dirk Willems. As the story goes, the Dutch Anabaptist was fleeing an Anabaptist hunter, when his pursuer broke through ice in a pond. Rather than continue his escape, Willems stopped to help the man. He was subsequently taken into custody and then burned at the stake. The story is an example of love of brother – even one who most modern readers would classify as “enemy”.

Stories of other martyrs in the book, the ancestors of today’s Amish and Mennonites, remind readers of the sacrifice paid by their forbears in holding fast to fundamental beliefs such as adult baptism and nonresistance.

The full English-translated title of the book from 1685, by the way, captures something of this:

The Bloody Theater or Martyrs Mirror of the Defenseless Christians who baptized only upon confession of faith, and who suffered and died for the testimony of Jesus, their Saviour, from the time of Christ to the year A.D. 1660.

And as a historical aside, the words Martyrs Mirror actually did not appear together in the title of the original 1660 version, and only came into use with the 1685 version, the basis for the new translation.

Concern Over A Drift Towards Protestantism

I found the most interesting bit of this report to be one of the motivations for producing a new, more-accessible translation: to re-anchor Anabaptists in their theology in the face of influence from mainstream religious currents.

A committee member named Harold Kurtz explained that Anabaptists are moving toward theology that’s “more Protestant than Anabaptist,” as the article puts it. A more easily-read version of Martyrs Mirror could help young Anabaptists to better understand the roots of their version of Christianity.

That concern over outside influence is not a surprise, considering that Protestantism broadly speaking is the largest religious branch in America and arguably most influential. As groups like the Old Order Amish, not to mention more modern Mennonite churches, have become more entwined in modern society, you’d expect some amount of drift.

The new translation is expected to be finished by 2030, with publication coming a year or two later. You can understand why it needs some time to complete when you consider the size of the book: the prior translation clocks in at over 1,100 pages.

The need for modernized versions has apparently been felt in other cultures as well, since this isn’t the only translation of the book that’s been happening, Anabaptist World reports. Other efforts include translation into modern German (published in 2025), Spanish, and French.

Martyrs Mirror can be read online, in its older English version, in full here.

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