Deutsche Theologie Lesen

Deutsche Theologie Lesen is a textbook to learn to read German, particularly for students of Christian studies and theology. Twelve chapters include complete grammar explanations with a variety of practice exercises including answers for self-study. Several authors of German literature and many quotes of increasing difficulty are represented to provide the student with ample opportunity to read authentic texts. Reading examples from the Martin Luther Bible are among the easiest texts in the first chapter. Following chapters offer texts from German theology and philosophy to provide a wide variety of literature from various centuries. To make learning more efficient, this textbook takes advantage of the many cognates between German and English. The author has also learned the language as an English speaker and offers many shortcuts learned from her own experiences and mistakes. Native German speakers have proofread and offered suggestions as well. This textbook will also be interesting to students of the Martin Luther Bible and offers a solid grammatical foundation for doing further study of German. Some suggestions for speaking and aural understanding are also offered but may be omitted if indeed reading is the only objective. Many illustrations from the author's own travels are included to offer vivid and memorable examples of grammatical points and vocabulary. The author aims to give students the incentive to go on to further study of German language and literature after completing this introductory book.

This volume features articles which employ source-work research to trace Kierkegaard's understanding and use of authors from the Patristic and Medieval traditions. It covers an extraordinarily long period of time from Cyprian and Tertullian in the second century to Thomas à Kempis in the fifteenth. Despite its heterogeneity and diversity in many aspects, this volume has a clear point of commonality in all its featured sources: Christianity. Kierkegaard's relation to the Patristic and Medieval traditions has been a rather neglected area of research in Kierkegaard studies. This is somewhat surprising given the fact that the young Kierkegaard learned about the Patristic authors during his studies at the University of Copenhagen and was clearly fascinated by many aspects of their writings and the conceptions of Christian religiosity found there. With regard to the medieval tradition, in addition to any number of theological issues, medieval mysticism, medieval art, the medieval church, troubadour poetry and the monastic movement were all themes that exercised Kierkegaard during different periods of his life. Although far from uncritical, he seems at times to idolize both the Patristic tradition and the Middle Ages as contrastive terms to the corrupt and decadent modern world with its complacent Christianity. While he clearly regards the specific forms of this Medieval appropriation of Christianity to be misguided, he is nonetheless positively disposed toward the general understanding of it as something to be lived and realized by each individual.