Contrary to the hagiography sometimes practiced in certain church circles, Martin Luther did not suddenly drop from the sky and illumine the dark night of medieval Christendom. Rather, the German reformer must be understood in context, and that certainly includes the medieval world that shaped his thinking in theology and philosophy. Above all, the late Heiko Oberman set the tone for this new stress in Reformation studies. This collection of essays, based on a conference that sought to go “beyond” Oberman, is edited by Christine Helmer and dedicated to a fine medieval scholar and teacher who influenced the work of many of its contributors, Marilyn McCord Adams. Adams died in 2017 and was the first woman to be named the Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford.

The book is divided into three categories in order to better understand the “medieval” Luther: “Christology,” “Soteriology,” and “Ministry.” Writers in each section seek to locate the reformer's indebtedness to the thinkers and movements that span the period from Augustine to the nominalist Gabriel Biel. As might be expected in a volume like this, the emphasis is on the continuity between Luther and the medieval period, and a unifying theme is the concern to oppose the scholarly traditions in Germany and North America that have underlined the newness in Luther's theology. This accent ought to be welcomed by all scholars of the Reformation. At the same time, the importance of recognizing this dimension of Luther's theology should not obscure the significant discontinuities that scholars continue to find in the reformer's thought.