Luther and March Madness

Ben

These all look "annotated." Can anyone make an argument for the 2-volume over the 1-volume or vice-versa?

The Annotated Luther, Volume 1: The Roots of Reform

The Annotated Luther, Volume 2: Word and Faith

vs

Martin Luther's Basic Theological Writings, 3rd ed

Ken McGuire

Luther wrote a lot, and as his fame grew, just about everything he said was notated and published. Not all of it has the same value - and not all of it was MEANT to have the same value. And so there have been centuries of editions of Luther for various needs.

The "Basic Theological Writings" is a one-volume selection of "important" Luther, largely based on the American Edition of the Mid-20th Century. In fact, the first edition of this Basic Theological Writings was basically a lithographic reproduction of pages from this edition with a few pages of new stuff - which meant that the footnotes sometimes noted discussion on "page x" where the page number given was the page in the American Edition - and not in that actual volume. The 3rd edition fixes this, and actually includes more recent sources for some works than the American Edition. It is probably the standard one-volume Luther collection in English today, and so if you want to start reading Luther, it is probably the best place to start. The 1st edition was largely my introduction to Luther - and unfortunately I do not know the newer editions well at all, since I have gone instead to the American Edition itself or a few other translations...

But "Luther Studies" is a dynamic field. Besides having a standard one volume edition of Luther, there is a place for new editions of works, with all the scholarly notes an expert in the field can give. And so for the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, Augsburg-Fortress is publishing a 6 volume new collection that can use the space to include more works, as well as more extensive annotations and introductions - which can be useful for those of us who are not 16th century theologians.

For example: from the introduction to the Heidelburg Disputation -

While generations of the disputation’s readers have been exposed to Luther’s theological critique of the tradition, the philosophical theses have often seemed to be extraneous. But a close reading of these theses and their probationes displays that Kolb’s statement of a paradigm shift applies to the entire disputation, including the explicitly philosophical material. Both the theological and philosophical theses concern the sinner’s inability to effect reconciliation with God: just as human doing does not place a demand upon the actions of God, so, too, human gazing on the visible objects of creation and history does not deliver a right conception of the divine. This cross clearly exposes our natural, human presuppositions in both epistemology and ethics, presuppositions resting upon a fundamental commitment to a theology of glory.

In the time since the first English translation of the Heidelberg Disputation by Harold Grimm in 1957, much has been learned about the philosophical theses. Most of the probationes accompanying the philosophical theses were unpublished until 1979, when Helmar Junghans published them. Research over the past five decades on Luther’s concerns in the philosophical theses has remained largely unknown to English-speaking audiences.p Indeed, no English translation of the probationes is yet available. Yet understanding the entire disputation demands making a connection between these theses and the first twenty-eight. Looking back on the Heidelberg Disputation, Luther acknowledged the importance of the philosophical theses: “For what could be gained with respect to the understanding of material things if you could quibble and trifle with matter, form, motion, measure, and time—words taken over and copied from Aristotle?” Luther maintained that Aristotle had been misunderstood by theologians of his time, that this misunderstanding had eventuated in much theological and philosophical mischief, and that theologians must understand Aristotle correctly if they are to avoid being misled with regard to the possibilities of human goodness and knowledge.


Bielfeldt, D. (2015). Heidelberg Disputation. In H. J. Hillerbrand, K. I. Stjerna, & T. J. Wengert (Eds.), The Roots of Reform (Vol. 1, pp. 73–75). Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press.

This additional information is useful - but many still want a one volume collection of "essential" works.