Posted on August 26, 2015 by PLT Staff

From the publisher:

The place and significance of Martin Luther in the long history of Christian anti-Jewish polemic has been and continues to be a contested issue. It is true that Luther’s anti-Jewish rhetoric intensified toward the end of his life, but reading Luther with a careful eye toward “the Jewish question,” it becomes clear that Luther’s theological presuppositions toward Judaism and the Jewish people are a central, core component of his thought throughout his career, not just at the end. It follows then that it is impossible to understand the heart and building blocks of Luther’s theology without acknowledging the crucial role of “the Jews” in his fundamental thinking.

Luther was constrained by ideas, images, and superstitions regarding the Jews and Judaism that he inherited from medieval Christian tradition. But the engine in the development of Luther’s theological thought as it relates to the Jews is his biblical hermeneutics. Just as “the Jewish question” is a central, core component of his thought, so biblical interpretation (and especially Old Testament interpretation) is the primary arena in which fundamental claims about the Jews and Judaism are formulated and developed.

About the Editors:

Kirsi I. Stjerna is First Lutheran, Los Angeles/Southwest California Synod Professor of Lutheran History and Theology at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary of California Lutheran University. A docent at the University of Helsinki, she is author or editor of eight books, including Women and the Reformation (2008) and Martin Luther, the Bible, and the Jewish People, with Brooks Schramm (Fortress Press, 2012).

Endorsements:

“With great precision and clarity, this reader re-opens and decisively advances the discussion of Luther’s relationship to the Jews. Indispensable for all future study of this vexed question.” –Denis R. Janz, Loyola University, New Orleans

“Written by two distinguished Lutheran scholars, one an expert on the Hebrew Bible, the other an authority on the Reformation, this volume makes an invaluable contribution to our understanding of a central—yet little understood—dimension of Luther’s writings: the place of Jews and Judaism in the Reformer’s thought. Quickly dismantling the accepted but false notion that this aspect of Luther was important to him only at the end of his life, Schramm and Stjerna prove that it was in fact an abiding theme in his writings. The texts they choose to translate and introduce demonstrate that this concern was one, in fact, that pervaded the entirety of his career. Beautifully contextualized socially and theologically, these documents are also expertly translated from the Latin and German. This superb and timely collection of texts will be of interest not only to Luther and Reformation specialists and teachers but to historians of Jewish-Christian relations and of the history of interpretation of the Bible.” –Kevin Madigan, Harvard Divinity School

“Written by two distinguished Lutheran scholars, one an expert on the Hebrew Bible, the other an authority on the Reformation, this volume makes an invaluable contribution to our understanding of a central—yet little understood—dimension of Luther’s writings: the place of Jews and Judaism in the Reformer’s thought. Quickly dismantling the accepted but false notion that this aspect of Luther was important to him only at the end of his life, Schramm and Stjerna prove that it was in fact an abiding theme in his writings. The texts they choose to translate and introduce demonstrate that this concern was one, in fact, that pervaded the entirety of his career. Beautifully contextualized socially and theologically, these documents are also expertly translated from the Latin and German. This superb and timely collection of texts will be of interest not only to Luther and Reformation specialists and teachers but to historians of Jewish-Christian relations and of the history of interpretation of the Bible.” –Kevin Madigan, Harvard Divinity School

Brooks Schramm is professor of biblical studies, Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg. He is the author of The Opponents of Third Isaiah (1995) and with Kirsi Stjerna of Spirituality: Toward a Twenty-First Century Understanding (2004).

• Publication Information
• Editor: Kirsi I. Stjerna , Brooks Schramm
• Publication Type: Book
• Publisher:Fortress Press
• Date of Publication:August 2012
• Purchase: Buy this publication »