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Adult Forum (In-Person & Online) "16th-Century Luther Bibles and the Mediated Word"

Adult Forum
Sunday, March 13, 2022
9:45 am - 10:45 am
Sam Dubbelman, Ph.D. student, Boston University

The Protestant principle of 'sola scriptura' is often contrasted to Roman Catholic practices of reading the Bible through church tradition. This popular teaching may fit with some of the rhetorical strategies of the Reformers, but it does not stand up to the scrutiny of material bibles produced by these same figures. Rather than containing stripped down texts of the word of God, the first Protestant Bibles were kind of like study bibles, that is, they were full of reader guides such as prefaces, marginal notes, commentary, and images. This presentation looks at several of these elements in 16th-century Luther Bibles and the ways that they were intended to both guide the presentation of the Bible as God's Word and facilitate reader response.