Saturday, May 05, 2012

Luther's Festival Sermons

One of the most interesting collections of Luther's sermons is now on-line for free: Festival Sermons of Martin Luther (Translated by Joel R. Baseley).
"The Festival Sermons of Martin Luther were compiled in the 1520's and edited during Luther's lifetime. With some of the outlines by Bugenhagen and some scholarly questions regarding its 16th century redaction, the character of the Reformer breathes in these never before translated or published Sermons of Martin Luther for the chief feasts and Saints' days of the church. This volume is a perfect companion for your Lenker and Klug collections!"
I've used this volume for a couple of years, particularly in regard to Luther's Mariology- that is, finding the context for those obscure Roman Catholic-used quotes portraying Luther as having a similar view on Mary as they do. Particularly, Baseley's translation was helpful with these two blog entries:

Luther: the infusion of Mary's soul was effected without original sin


Luther on the Assumption of Mary: "There can be no doubt that the Virgin Mary is in heaven. How it happened we do not know"

The volume itself is worthy of purchase. I'm not sure why Joel Baseley simply wants to give his translation away. I would rather see Concordia pick it up and make it available in digital format along with the other volumes of Luther's works.

2 comments:

Martin Yee said...

Hi James,

Thanks for the info. This is indeed quite an unusual offer. Probably they have a kind sponsor who wish to promote Luther's works.

Regards,
Martin

James Swan said...

I'm not sure why Baseley would give his work away for free.

I've greatly benefited from this book, and while I appreciate his generosity by making it available on-line, I think it would be better to work out some sort of download with either Logos or Concordia.