Many thanks to the kind folks at Fortress Press for sending along a review copy of Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, Third Edition Revised & Expanded by Emanuel Tov. I am looking forward to making my way through this new edition. Here’s a brief description from the back cover of the book:

“Since its initial publication in 1992, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible as established itself as the indispensable authoritative textbook and reference on the subject.

In this thoroughly revised third edition, Emmanuel Tov has fully incorporated the insights of the last twenty lively years of scholarship, including new perspectives on the biblical texts among the now published Dead Sea Scroll biblical manuscripts. Here the student will find a well-organized introduction to the resources and practice of textual criticism; the scholar, a penetratingly insightful programmatic discussion of its methods. new discussions and new features abound. The result is a wonderfully lucid presentation of a complex, fast-changing, and engaging discipline.”

Author Information:
Emanuel Tov is J. L. Magnes Professor of Bible at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and Editor-in-Chief of the Dead Sea Scrolls Publication Project. Among his many publications is The Greek and Hebrew Bible-Collected Essays on the Septuagint (Brill Academic Pub, 1999).

Format:  Paperback
Page Count:  128
Publisher: Fortress Press
Publication Date:  July 1, 2008
Language: English
ISBN-10: 080066311X
List Price:  $16.00
Rating:  5 Stars!

Many thanks to the kind folks at Fortress Press for the opportunity to review this updated edition of Martin Luther’s The Freedom of a Christian.

An unfortunate circumstance in our age of media and information overload is that students are more informed on modern trends and popular culture than they are of history.  This lack of exposure to history can be a real handicap to students as they labor through the writings of theological giants like Calvin, Luther, and others.  In order to bridge this gap, publishers are producing many reader’s and study editions of important works in order to make these writings accessible to a whole new generation.  Hats off to Fortress Press for doing just that, with this updated edition of Martin Luther’s The Freedom of a Christian:  Luther Study Edition.

Mark D. Tranvik puts twenty plus years of teaching Martin Luther’s The Freedom of a Christian to work in bringing us this most excellent Luther study edition.  This volume offers an updated translation as well as very thorough footnotes and commentary.  With these helps as their guide, readers with minimal exposure to Luther’s writings and their historical context will be able to follow along with relative ease.  I particularly enjoyed the introductory chapter titled Martin Luther’s Road to Freedom.  It gives the reader a good idea of the extent to which the fear of death and the devil dominated the culture of the sixteenth century.  This chapter also offers a brief biographical sketch of the life of Martin Luther and as the title of the chapter suggests, his road to freedom.

The remainder of the book is comprised of two parts.  First is Luther’s letter to Pope Leo X in which he notes that he has dedicated his short essay on the entire Christian life (i.e. The Freedom of a Christian) to Pope Leo.  Second is Luther’s essay titled The Freedom of a Christian.  Here Luther explains his course of history altering understanding of the justification of sinners by faith and the good works that follow.  Readers will also want to make use of the short glossary at the end of the book, which defines some of the important people, places, and concepts relevant to the essay.

All things considered, I must give this new edition of The Freedom of a Christian a rating of five stars.  This updated edition will be useful for both a classroom setting and personal study.  Those long acquainted with Luther and those discovering Luther for the first time will both benefit greatly from this new volume.  Readers who enjoy this work will also want to consider Martin Luther’s Basic Theological Writings, 2nd Edition (Fortress Press, 2005).

Mark D. Tranvik is Associate Professor of Religion at Augsburg Fortress College, Minneapolis, and director of the Lilly Endowment Program on vocation there.

You may download this review as a PDF: 

Thanks are in order to my friends at Fortress Press for providing me with the following books for review:

Reviews to follow this winter.

Editor: Timothy F. Lull  (1st edition)
Editor:  William Russel (2nd edition)
Format: Paperback & CD-ROM
Page Count:  520
Publisher: Fortress Press
Publication Date:  January 28, 2005
Language: English
ISBN-13: 9780800636807

I wanted to extend my sincerest thanks to my friends at Fortress Press for furnishing me with a review copy of Martin Luther’s Basic Theological Writings, Second Edition.

When I take a moment to consider the sheer volume of writings completed by Martin Luther during his lifetime, I can only imagine the difficulty I would face in trying to narrow down which writings to include in a volume of this length.  Timothy F. Lull & William Russel faced this task head on and put together a great collection of Luther’s basic theological writings.  Lull had a two-fold focus in the first edition.  He wanted to include Luther’s most important shorter writings and demonstrate the range of Luther’s theological interests.  Russel expands the focus a bit in the second edition by adding some of Luther’s personal writings, which give the reader further insight into Luther’s religious life and personal commitments.  The writings in this book are organized topically and are presented in seven parts:

• Part I:  Luther the Man
• Part II:  The Task of Theology
• Part III:  The Power of the Word of God
• Part IV:  The Righteousness of God
• Part V:  The Promise of the Sacraments
• Part VI:  The Reform of the Church
• Part VII:  Living and Dying As a Christian

For the benefit of those who may want to read these works in chronological order, the works in this volume are listed by order of composition year at the end of the table of contents.

As expected, this volume contains many of the familiar writings we associate with Luther, some in whole and others in part.  (The Ninety-Five Theses, The Bondage of the Will, The Small Catechism, The Smalcald Articles, etc.)  Most of these were familiar to me.  I was most excited about the writings I was less familiar with in Part I:  Luther The Man, especially Luther’s will, selections from table talk and selected personal letters.  These writings help to present a more personal side to Martin Luther that is sometimes lost in biographies and other academic works.

In addition to Luther’s writings, there are several other things to note about this great volume.  As you work through this book, you’ll notice a number of the title pages from Luther’s theological works in German, which have been reprinted here for your enjoyment.  These title pages are quite beautiful and are in and of themselves art.  There’s a lot of symbolism in these pictures, so be sure to take the time to look them over.  For those of you who want to do further study of Luther, there is a selected bibliography that comes before chapter one.  It covers the following subject areas:  1. Primary Documents, 2. Bibliographies, 3. Martin Luther:  Biography, 4. Martin Luther:  Theology.  The final feature I’d like to make note of is the CD-ROM that comes with the book.  The CD-ROM is compatible with the Libronix Digital Library System from LOGOS Bible Software.  It contains the full text of this book, a short biography of Luther, links to other resources, a research-paper guide, and a glossary.

Whether you’re a layperson, theology student, pastor or a professor this book is a must for your library.  The range of material covered will serve as a great introduction to the theological writings of Martin Luther.  This book by itself is a great value.  The Libronix-compatible CD is an added bonus, allowing you to add this great work to both your print library and digital library for a reasonable price.

Timothy F. Lull, editor, was President of Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary, Berkley, and Professor of Systematic Theology there before his death in 2003.

William Russell is author of Luther’s Theological Testament and translator of The Schmalkald Articles in The Book of Concord.

You may download a PDF of this review here: 

You may read the foreword, introduction, and table of contents at the Augsburg Fortress web site:

• Foreword:
• Introduction:
• Table Of Contents:  LINK