Monday, November 01, 2010

New Editions of Luther's Work.. and other things




Here's some Luther-related tidbits.

Recently a new volume of Luther's Works came out. I came across a pdf that outlines the planned volumes 56-75. The 44 page pdf can be found here.

The website hosting this pdf has a very helpful resource: Luther's Works Complete Tables of Contents and Cross Listing. This web page cross-references all the writings from the English edition of Luther's Works (LW) to the Weimar Edition (WA). I recall trying to buy a book that did this very thing: Heinrich J. Vogel, Cross Reference and Index to the Contents of Luther's Works, but the book was quite expensive.

This website links to all the volumes in the Weimar edition. This has been wonderfully helpful. Also Google has many of the Erlangen volumes on-line, but the scans are poor.

Google actually put up a fairly good Latin to English translator. While it isn't an exact science, it's been helpful in getting a look at some of Luther's Latin texts. By the way, Google's German to English translator stinks. I've been getting some wonderful German help from Brigitte. I'm forever grateful for her graciousness and help with Luther's German writings. I've met some wonderful people in cyberspace!

I've been using Google's book search on volumes that they don't have previews for, but books I have in my personal library. It's been helpful to search my three volume set of What Luther Says: Volume 1, Volume 2, Volume 3. If Pastor McCain is reading this, please bring these books up to Concordia Publishing House as volumes that must be digitized (and perhaps revised to reference LW). By the way, What Luther Says is a great Christmas present idea for your pastor, even Reformed pastors.

I've got a steady flow of books still coming in. I've found two interesting "devotional" (for lack of a better word) books of Luther's writings. Day by Day We Magnify Thee is an old volume that has daily readings from Luther in English based on the Weimar edition. Faith Alone: A Daily Devotional is another such volume (with some rather curious translations). This volume is more of a thought-for-thought translation, rather than word for word. So after you've read your daily Spurgeon, take a few minutes to read a bit of Luther.

Then I've got Roman Catholic and other nasty Luther critiques coming in. I made the mistake of buying what I thought was a Luther book by Roman Catholic wild man Vinnie Lewis. I should've looked more closely, as it's a recording. Ah well, I'll put it on my mp3 player along with some of the heavier music. I finally had to get a copy of Jacques Maritain's Three Reformers. It appears Maritian really didn't read Luther, as his end notes are filled with all sorts of errors. I purchased Frantz Funck-Bretano's biography of Luther. This text served as one of the main sources used by Peter Wiener's awful Martin Luther, Hitler's Spiritual Ancestor, which is a popular old book on-line. I ended up buying a copy of a first edition of this book as well, which hasn't arrived yet. Interesting factoid: Hitler mentions Luther only once in Mein Kampf in a passing comment. True, the Nazi's claimed Luther on their side, but don't forget they also claimed God was on their side. Google books put up a book that documents the life of Father Patrick O'Hare, mastermind behind the dreadful Facts About Luther. It was interesting to finally see a picture of Father O'Hare.

I was trying to work through all the quote from Luther, Exposing the Myth before October 31, but I failed. This link though has hyper-links to what I've done thus far.


Unrelated Tidbits:

On my sidebar, my feed to TurretinFan's blog stopped working. I've tried to reinstall the widget, but it still won't update. Anyone know why?

I saw the movie, The Book of Eli this weekend... it will serve as a true motivator for KJV-only advocates to start carrying swords around, LOL.

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