Robert Kolb, professor of systematic theology emeritus at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, has been extraordinarily productive of late. For some time, he has been a leading scholar of the Lutheran Reformation, especially through works such as Martin Luther as Prophet, Teacher, Hero: Images of the Reformer, 1520–1620 (Baker/Paternoster, 1999); Martin Luther: Confessor of the Faith (Oxford University Press, 2009); and Luther and the Stories of God: Biblical Narratives as a Foundation for Christian Living (Baker Academic, 2012). More recently, occasioned by the Reformation's 500 Anniversary, Kolb has produced an impressive number of new and important works that have greatly enriched our understanding of Luther and the Reformation. He has written for both the academy and the church. These works include the coedited Oxford Handbook of Martin Luther's Theology (Oxford University Press, 2014), Martin Luther and the Enduring Word of God: The Wittenberg School and its Scripture-centered Proclamation (Baker Academic, 2016), and Luther's Wittenberg World: The Reformer's Family, Friends, Followers, and Foes (Fortress, 2018). Much of this recent work is informed by the concern to situate Luther within the larger community of human beings whom he shaped and who shaped him. Kolb has eschewed the Luther-as-solitary-heroic-reformer perspective and has instead sought to historicize and humanize the Wittenberg reformer, even as he has been quite forthright about his admiration for him. Martin Luther as He Lived and Breathed may be seen as part of this larger historicizing and humanizing effort.
The volume is intended for a more popular audience. It is part of the Cascade Companions series, which seeks to provide the general reader with scholarly yet accessible introductions to some of the major themes and persons of the Christian theological tradition. The goal is to invite such readers to delve deeper into this tradition through further study. Kolb adopts a clever way of satisfying this desideratum: in each of the eight chapters, he provides a learned and readable narrative of a given portion of Luther's life and thought and then shares the results of his “interviews” with many of the people who knew Luther the best. As Kolb explains:
Accompanying the narrator's recital of the main thread of his story are “interviews,” quotations, some from Luther himself, some from his students or followers, some from his critics and enemies. They reveal the perspectives of individuals with a variety of vantage points from which they viewed the Wittenberg reformer. Readers will gain here a series of sixteenth-century perceptions on the man to whom very few were indifferent. Those perceptions reflect both adoring admiration from those who were absorbing his ideas as best they could or wished to and the horrified revulsion of those who reacted to him with fear that his message was bringing the destruction of church and society (viii).
These interviewees include well-known figures such as the Protestant reformers Martin Bucer, Johannes Mathesius, and Philip Melanchthon, along with Catholic theologians Johannes Cochlaeus, Johann Eck, and Thomas Murner. There are also lesser-known people, such as the Wittenberg student Georg Benedict and Luther's Augustinian brother and critic, Johannes Hoffmeister. The interviews provide the balanced view of Luther that Kolb promises; they also contain a number of unexpected gems, such as Melanchthon's reflections on his relationship with Luther's parents (11) and Mathesius's comments, corroborating those of Melanchthon, on how important Bernard of Clairvaux was for Luther in the monastery (31). The notable and important lacuna in the otherwise valuable and compelling interviews is the lack of female voices—there are no women among the interviewees. (Sources are admittedly a problem here.)
While the title of the work, Martin Luther as He Lived and Breathed, suggests that these interviews will provide the reader with direct access to the Wittenberg reformer, Kolb does sound a note of caution in the introduction: “Both enthusiasm and enmity can twist perceptions of events and readings of documents. Therefore, the readers of this volume will need a grain or two of salt when reading these accounts. There is something there in each individual's reflections on what they have read and heard and experienced personally, but facticity was sometimes sacrificed to feelings” (xi). This is an important and salutary caution in a work intended for a broad audience. More generally, the pairing of primary sources with Kolb's narrative in each chapter also provides a valuable teaching tool for those who work with undergraduates.
Given the volume's intended audience, Kolb does not set out to offer a new interpretation of Luther. The volume contains no new arguments about the nature or timing of the Reformation breakthrough, whether Luther nailed or merely mailed the Ninety-Five Theses, or any such controversial issues in modern Luther scholarship. Kolb's own impeccable scholarship on such issues clearly shapes his narrative, and at times he informs the reader about this or that scholarly debate, but the goal is accessibility, and Kolb achieves it admirably. The narrative contains the same reverence and revulsion for Luther that one finds in the interviews, although more of the former than the latter. Kolb is sympathetic to Luther and his cause, something that is clear from his treatment of late medieval Christianity. Kolb concedes that “grace was placed within reach” of Christians (23), but he still argues that most had a difficult time receiving it. Kolb depicts pre-Reformation Christianity as mired in works righteousness, from which Luther—or God through Luther—rescued it. Other scholars, including those whom Kolb recommends to readers, especially Berndt Hamm, have found a bit more grace in late medieval Christianity. But Kolb also scolds Luther, especially for his “sinful fury” against the Jews (152).
The volume spans the whole of Luther's life, and each chapter concludes with suggestions for further reading and a list of discussion questions. A number of these questions are well-suited for an undergraduate audience: “What kind of Augustinian brother was Luther? Would you like to have been in the cloister with him?” (34); “Would you prefer to graduate on the basis of course grades and accumulated credits or to earn your degree with your performance at a disputation like the one Luther had when seeking his doctorate?” (53); “Do you worry about justifying yourself to friends or others?” (54).
Kolb has provided a very effective tool for introducing a general audience, especially undergraduates, to the complexities of the Wittenberg reformer.
