From “one of the best of the new [Martin Luther] biographers” (The New Yorker), a portrait of the complicated founding father of the Protestant Reformation, whose intellectual assault on Catholicism transformed Christianity and changed the course of world history. “Magnificent.”—The Wall Street Journal “Penetrating.”—The New York Times Book Review “Smart, accessible, authoritative.”—Hilary Mantel On October 31, 1517, so the story goes, a shy monk named Martin Luther nailed a piece of paper to the door of the Castle Church in the university town of Wittenberg. The ideas contained in these Ninety-five Theses, which boldly challenged the Catholic Church, spread like wildfire. Within two months, they were known all over Germany. So powerful were Martin Luther’s broadsides against papal authority that they polarized a continent and tore apart the very foundation of Western Christendom. Luther’s ideas inspired upheavals whose consequences we live with today. But who was the man behind the Ninety-five Theses? Lyndal Roper’s magisterial new biography goes beyond Luther’s theology to investigate the inner life of the religious reformer who has been called “the last medieval man and the first modern one.” Here is a full-blooded portrait of a revolutionary thinker who was, at his core, deeply flawed and full of contradictions. Luther was a brilliant writer whose biblical translations had a lasting impact on the German language. Yet he was also a strident fundamentalist whose scathing rhetorical attacks threatened to alienate those he might persuade. He had a colorful, even impish personality, and when he left the monastery to get married (“to spite the Devil,” he explained), he wooed and wed an ex-nun. But he had an ugly side too. When German peasants rose up against the nobility, Luther urged the aristocracy to slaughter them. He was a ferocious anti-Semite and a virulent misogynist, even as he argued for liberated human sexuality within marriage. A distinguished historian of early modern Europe, Lyndal Roper looks deep inside the heart of this singularly complex figure. The force of Luther’s personality, she argues, had enormous historical effects—both good and ill. By bringing us closer than ever to the man himself, she opens up a new vision of the Reformation and the world it created and draws a fully three-dimensional portrait of its founder.
Afresh account of the life of Martin Luther"
Martin Luther's radical actions in 16th century Germany sparked off the dramatic process of the European Reformation. This important new biography portrays Luther, his concerns and his achievements with clarity and verve, and provides a.
Reclaiming Pietism: Retrieving an Evangelical Tradition. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Shantz, Douglas. 2013. An Introduction to German Pietism. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Stoeffler, F. Ernest. 1971.
After it became clear that Luther was unable to silence or convince Agricola, the two engaged in open conflict beginning in 1538. Luther eventually broke off relations, seemingly proud of his ability to sow discord when it resulted from ...
"Martin Luther is a fresh retelling of one the most significant figures of the last millennium.
This remarkable book offers the basics of Luther's understanding of theology, discussing his response to the philosophy of science tradition, the formula by which he studied theology, and the basic philosophy that informed him.
Selected from more than fifty volumes of Martin Luther's work, this anthology of writings by the Reformation leader includes his sermons, letters, Old and New Testament Bible commentaries, treatises, polemics, and his hymns.
A major new account of the most intensely creative years of Luther's career The Making of Martin Luther takes a provocative look at the intellectual emergence of one of the most original and influential minds of the sixteenth century.
In A World Ablaze, Craig Harline introduces us to the flesh-and-blood Martin Luther. Harline tells the riveting story of the first crucial years of the accidental crusade that would make Luther a legendary figure.
His place was taken by Heinrich Bullinger . The farther south and west in Germany the Lutheran reform went , the more resistance it found . The issue was still the Eucharist . Martin Bucer of Strasbourg , a former Augustinian whom ...