Recently I finished the book Luther: Man Between God and the Devil. by Heiko A. Oberman. The premise of the book is that to understand Martin Luther, we cannot view him as either a mediaeval man or a modern man, but have to understand him by his own words. As the title of the book indicated Luther fundamentally saw the world and Christianity as between God and the Devil. Although Luther expressed that the devil is God’s devil, we do not see the omnipotent hand of God, and the devil is still a strong adversary of the Christian in this age. (Although this does not entail the popular belief that God and the devil have cast a vote for your soul and it is up to you to decide who to choose.)
I enjoyed the book quite a bit, and appreciated its thoroughness from Luther’s earthy language to his marrying of Katharina von Bora, and unconventional views on intimacy. Overall I enjoyed the book and found it very engaging. In some places, however, I felt the translation from German could have been made a little clearer, but even so the vast majority of the translation was transparent.
