KINGDOM OF BAVARIA AUTHOR · BIBLE · COMMENTARIES
Christoph Ernst Luthardt
Also known as: Luthardt, Chr. Ernst, Christoph Ernst Liethardt
John Newton, a seventeen-year-old sailor, was standing on the deck of a ship anchored off Venice in the Spring of 1743.
— from Amazing grace
Most acclaimed
Amazing grace
"Inspired by the way "Amazing Grace" continues to change and grow in popularity, acclaimed music writer Steve Turner embarks on a journey to trace the life of the hymn, from Olney, England, where it was written by former slave trader John Newton, to tiny Plantain Island off the coast of Africa, where Newton was held captive for almost a year, to the Kentucky-Tennessee border and other parts of the South, where the hymn first began to spread.". "As a young man, John Newton was pressed into the Royal Navy, but was such a rebellious sailor that he was moved to a slave ship in Madeira and eventually became a "servant of slaves in Africa." He was rescued from Africa by a merchant ship, but on the voyage back to England his ship endured an eleven-hour storm on the Atlantic - after which, reflecting on his miraculous survival and on his wretched state in Africa, he converted to Christianity. Back in England, he eventually became a minister and, still later, a vocal abolitionist. During his time as a Church of England parish priest, he and a friend, the poet William Cowper, began experimenting with what was then a relatively new form of religious song, the Protestant hymn, when he wrote "Amazing Grace" for use among his congregation.". "The hymn made its way across the Atlantic to South Carolina, where the lyrics were published for the first time with a tune. Through the nineteenth century it appeared in more and more hymnals, and the twentieth century it rose to become a gospel and folk standard, then exploded into pop music with Judy Collins's masterful 1970 a capella recording, which took over the charts. The majority of the more than 450 recordings held by the Library of Congress were made after 1970 and include versions by artists as varied as Elvis Presley, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Tiny Tim, Al Green, Johnny Cash, Rod Stewart, Chet Baker, and Destiny's Child. Amazing Grace closely examines this modern history as Turner traces the hymn through the American gospel tradition in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and interviews contemporary artists to reveal why they were compelled to record the hymn."--BOOK JACKET.
The church
The Reader (German: Der Vorleser) is a novel by German law professor and judge Bernhard Schlink, published in 1995. The story is a parable dealing with the difficulties post-war German generations have had comprehending the Holocaust; Ruth Franklin writes that it was aimed specifically at the generation Bertolt Brecht called the Nachgeborenen (those who came after). Like other novels in the genre of Vergangenheitsbewältigung (the struggle to come to terms with the past), The Reader explores how the post-war generations should approach the generation that took part in, or witnessed, the atrocities. These are the questions at the heart of Holocaust literature in the late 20th and early 21st century, as the victims and witnesses died and living memory was fading. Schlink's book was well received in his native country and elsewhere, winning several awards; Der Spiegel wrote that it was one of the greatest triumphs of German literature since Günter Grass's The Tin Drum (1959).
Romans
The Gospel of John was beloved by the early church, much as it is today, for its spiritual insight and clear declaration of Jesus' divinity. Clement of Alexandria indeed declared it the "spiritual Gospel." Early disputers with heretics such as Cerinthus and the Ebionites drew upon the Gospel of John to refute their heretical notions and uphold the full deity of Christ, and this Gospel more than any other was central to the trinitarian and christological debates of the fourth and fifth centuries. At the same time, the Gospel of John was also thought to be the most chronological, and even to this day is the source of our sense of Jesus' having a three-year ministry. And John Chrysostom's Homilies on John, perhaps more than any other commentary, emphasize Christ's humanity and condescension toward the human race. In addition to the serial homilies of John Chrysostom, readers of this volume will find selections from those of Origen, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Cyril of Alexandria and Augustine. These commentaries are supplemented with homiletic material from Gregory the Great, Peter Chrysologus, Caesarius, Amphilochius, Basil the Great and Basil of Seleucia among others. Liturgical selections derive from Ephrem the Syrian, Ambrose and Romanos the Melodist, which are further supplemented with doctrinal material from Athanasius, the Cappodocians, Hilary and Ambrose.