Martin Luther: A Life, by Martin Marty

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Martin Luther was a man of great thought and constantly went against the feelings and views of other people of his time. Martin Luther was born on November 10th in 1483, in the Saxon town of Eisleben located in Germany. Martin was born of mother Margrethe, who many of his enemies thought of as being a whore and a bath attendant, yet Martin recalled her later on in life as someone who was hardworking and very able and willing to punish him if he had done wrong. Martin Luther grew up in the middle-class range and wasn't born into great wealth like many other great scholars of his time were like such as Girolamo Savonarola, who's family was rich before his birth around Luther’s time. Martin Luther’s father's name was Han's Luder, which later on became Luther, who was a miner and a smelter in which neither made him wealthy in the least. Han's and Luther had a relationship that bounced around, but I will get to that topic in a not so distant paragraph. Martin was brought up in a Christian family and soon after his birth he was baptized, which was a momentous process that can occur. At a young age Martin began school and this started his steps towards becoming a great debater, writer, and preacher. According to Martin Marty, Luther's start as a great speaker and writer began after he learned Rhetoric and this held with him for decades to come. At the beginning Martin's father Hans saw great potential in Luther, as well as wanting him to make a lot of money, and told him that he should take the path in becoming a lawyer. Martin would have been well enough as a lawyer if he had taken the opportunity, but I feel history would be devastatingly different without him as a religious scholar. In Luther's twenty's he began to think deeply about ...

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...sn't just a man of perfection. Just like any real person Martin failed, he got up, and he failed again yet he never stopped trying. Martin never went against his faith, even though he contemplated if what he believed was realistic, he never once went against it and gave up. I think that Martin Marty tied Martin Luther's life up as he would have wanted to. I think that when I have time I will really dig down and get into this book from start to finish and see if there is anything that I have missed, because after finishing the book the only issue I had is that I was a little confused on pieces and felt that I had forgotten some details that would have been good for this review. Overall this book was great and I will definitely dig deeper into it later when I have the time to do so.

Martin Luther: A Life (Penguin Lives) Paperback – August 26, 2008

by Martin E. Marty

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