Martin Luther as He Lived and Breathed

Luther's oft-recounted life made a profound impact on his contemporaries. Some revered him; some hated him. This volume provides a brief narrative of the unfolding events that took place from his birth to a young entrepreneurial family through his turbulent career as university professor and public figure to his death while on a mission to reconcile a feuding princely family. Following parts of this narrative come ""interviews"" with friends and foes of his time, taken from a variety of sixteenth-century sources that present this dominating reformer and the passions that possessed both those who found him to be God's end-time prophet and those who hated all that he stood for because they believed it was destroying their world. ""Kolb has a gift for weaving details from the most current historical research into an accessible narrative for non-specialist readers. His creative arrangement of primary sources from fourteen contemporaries of Luther into a conversational format is simply charming. Discussion questions at the end of each chapter prompt readers to connect Luther's life and the events of the Reformation to their own experience. A rich resource for personal reflection or group study."" --Kathryn A. Kleinhans, Dean of Trinity Lutheran Seminary, Capital University, Columbus, Ohio ""Robert Kolb brings a lifetime of research, teaching, and reflection to this portrayal of Luther, and it shows. Kolb makes a complicated figur...