In Lyndal Roper’s Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet, Roper attempts to gain not an understanding of the Protestant Reformation as a whole, but rather of Martin Luther as a person. She spends most of the book examining Luther specifically, the decisions he made and why he made them. She examines his publications and letters to attempt to find out what exactly makes the man tick. Such can be seen here “Luther’s letter writing habits offered perhaps the most intriguing insights.” It is obvious the reliance on correspondence is made clear here. Let us start working our way through the work. Roper begins the work with what is probably to most logically start point, with Luther’s father, Hans Luder. And one of the many things Roper makes clear
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It is during his time in Wittenberg that we see the major start of Luther’s rebellion, “Then, on October 31, 1517, Luther posted his Ninety-five Theses.” At first, according to Roper, Luther had only intended these to be an exercise in debate but it appears he was not wholly forthcoming in this regard, “When writing to the bishop of Brandenburg a few month later, he (Luther) denied that the these were theological truth and insisted that they were no more than propositions designed to be debated, but he(Luther) was soon engaged in defending them vigorously.” Roper seems to suggest that Luther does not actually believe this to be truth. Roper proceeds to discuss that although Protestants deem the date of the posting of the theses as the start of the reformation, according to Luther himself, the transformation happened much earlier “Significantly, Luther dated the transformation not to 1515 the year he lectured on Romans, nor even to 1517 the year of the Ninety-five These, but to 1519.” Now this is directly in opposition to the suggestion that even though Luther didn’t think is Theses absolute truth he still vigorously defended them. That suggests, according to Roper, that Luther already had his transformation, whereas according to Luther it didn’t happen until two years
It is during his time in Wittenberg that we see the major start of Luther’s rebellion, “Then, on October 31, 1517, Luther posted his Ninety-five Theses.” At first, according to Roper, Luther had only intended these to be an exercise in debate but it appears he was not wholly forthcoming in this regard, “When writing to the bishop of Brandenburg a few month later, he (Luther) denied that the these were theological truth and insisted that they were no more than propositions designed to be debated, but he(Luther) was soon engaged in defending them vigorously.” Roper seems to suggest that Luther does not actually believe this to be truth. Roper proceeds to discuss that although Protestants deem the date of the posting of the theses as the start of the reformation, according to Luther himself, the transformation happened much earlier “Significantly, Luther dated the transformation not to 1515 the year he lectured on Romans, nor even to 1517 the year of the Ninety-five These, but to 1519.” Now this is directly in opposition to the suggestion that even though Luther didn’t think is Theses absolute truth he still vigorously defended them. That suggests, according to Roper, that Luther already had his transformation, whereas according to Luther it didn’t happen until two years