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rsanchez455's review against another edition
3.0
This is an abridged version of Luther’s lecture notes. The editorial work is not the best. Their parenthetical “helps” throughout the volume are meant to help the reader understand Luther’s meaning, but they are at times clunky. Luther’s intro or preface to Romans is a masterpiece.
skitch41's review
3.0
Today, verse-for-verse commentaries on the books of the Bible are a dime a dozen. But in the early 16th century, they were a new thing in Biblical scholarship. Among the many revolutionary things in Biblical scholarship and church history Martin Luther did, his verse-by-verse commentary on Romans was one of the first. This volume, translated from the original German and abridged for a general audience, brings one of Martin Luther's first major works to the public. It was written two years before Luther nailed the 95 theses to the door of the Wittenberg cathedral and some of the ideas that he would come to advocate, particularly that salvation is by grace alone through faith in Jesus Christ alone, are worked out for the first time within these pages. There are some fascinating passages, particularly how willing Luther was to call out the princes of Europe in general for not being faithful agent's of God's justice on Earth, and from a historian's perspective, it is interesting to see Luther's thoughts beginning to form. But this can be a difficult read. To make up for holes in the manuscript or long tangents Luther would go off on, the editor uses parentheses and italicized letters to denote when it is the editor writing and not Luther. And the editor does this A LOT. Though it seems to hew pretty close to Luther's thoughts, the number of edits does make you wonder. Not to mention that it can be a little distracting. There are also some parts that are not as interesting as other parts in the book, making this an, a times, boring read. Still, for those interested in something different to supplement their daily Bible readings, this would be an interesting choice.
lutheranlongaphie's review
4.0
Really interesting piece of history. In some ways, we could say this book is itself the Reformation. For that reason itself it is fascinating to read, however, due to its early place in Reformation history, there are parts of Luther's thought that are super undeveloped within it.
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