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Mark C. Mattes, ed., Twentieth-Century Lutheran Theologians (Gttingen:Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht), 2013.

Assembled here are essays describing the lives and works of Lutheranisms most importantbiblical and systematic theologians of the 20th century. Pieper, and Koehler, and Holl;Hallesby and Elert and Althaus; Sasse and Iwand and Schlink join Bonhoeffer andKsemann, Thielicke, Wingren and Ebeling in nothing less than a theologians hall of fame.Each receives the thorough description vis--vis their contributions to the field that they

deserve.

Various readers will be drawn, by their own interests, like moths to a flame, to the variouschapters. This reviewer was drawn principally to Roy A. Harrisvilles engaging andeffulgent chapter on Ernst Ksemann. And I learned so very much there that I can scarcely,I must confess, contain my enthusiasm for this collection.

Harrisville first gives readers a tour of Ksemanns life by means of a short biography whichincludes such facts as that Ksemann

contracted an infection requiring extraction of his fingernails (p. 251)

whilst a soldier conscripted in the service of the Wehrmacht in 1940.

And that his daughter Elisabeth was killed by terrorists in South America- terrorists inservice of the CIA backed mercenaries of Argentina.

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And that he studied with Erik Peterson and Rudolf Bultmann (which we all knew) andAdolf Schlatter. And that from these three he drew, and learned, and rebelled. And that allthe while he struggled mightily to embody the Gospel of the Crucified Lord in every aspectof his life and work.

His fiery disposition and his unyielding singlemindedness landed him in hot water with theNazis, with the German Christians, and with the faculties of the various schools at which hetaught.

Following his retirement in 1971, those colleagues invited him to theirArbeitsgemeinschaft, a monthly meeting of members of the universitysCatholic and Protestant faculties, and which featured monthly presentation ofscholarly papers and responses. According to Ksemann, the invitationcontained the proviso that he remain silent throughout (p. 265).

All of this led him to

leave the Evangelical Church, and [he] applied to the Methodists formembership. He was refused. As he said, they didnt want me (p. 265).

Towards the end of his life (in the early 1990s) he entered into a robust debate with otherscholars in the pages of Evangelische Theologie about the Church and its connection to

Judaism. The discussion became, at times, quite robust (and you are urged to see foryourself by reading EvTh 51 (1991) and most especially EvTh 52/2 (1992), pp. 177-178.

Even then and thereafter he was never the recipient of the respect he clearly deserved.

In a volume dedicated to the theological institutions of the Third Reich, theonly reference to Pastor Ernst Ksemann of Gelesenkirchen, is to his beingpassed over for the position of New Testament instructor at the theologicalschool in Bethel. Apparently, Ksemanns resistance to Nazism does notdeserve the exposure of that of a Bonhoeffer, for example, since it ended onlyin pain and suffering, not in death (p. 268).

At his funeral, on 25 February 1998, he was finally properly eulogized.

Now, Ernst and Margrit, his wife of sixty-three years, lie in the Lustnaucemetery with Elisabeth (p. 269).

What Harrisville does for Ksemann the other contributors do for the objects of theirstudies: they fill in the blanks and offer readers enough details about their lives and worksthat a large window is opened and light fully exposes not only what they taught, but who

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they were. Even Bonhoeffer, that wicked plotting murderer, comes off more worthily thanhe heretofore deserved.

This volume cannot be evaluated too highly and students of theology cannot be urged tooforcefully to read it. It must be taken in hand. It must be read. It must of necessity be

digested.

Jim WestQuartz Hill School of Theology