Introduction to the Heidelberg Catechism (Texts and Studies in Reformation and Post-Reformation Thought)

D. Bierma Lyle

Description

This work examines key aspects of the development of the Heidelberg Catechism, including historical background, socio-political origins, purpose, authorship, sources, and theology. The book includes the first ever English translations of two major sources of the Heidelberg Catechism--Ursinus's Smaller and Larger Catechisms--and a bibliography of research on the document since 1900.Students of the Reformed tradition and the Protestant Reformation will value this resource.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Christian theology

Informations

• Publié par: Baker Publishing Group
• Date de parution: 01 septembre 2005
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781441206626
• Langue: English

Extrait

Texts and Studies in Reformation and Post-Reformation Thought
General Editor
Prof. Richard A. Muller, Calvin Theological Seminary
Editorial Board
Prof. Irena Backus, University of Geneva
Prof. A. N. S. Lane, London Bible College
Prof. Susan E. Schreiner, University of Chicago
Prof. David C. Steinmetz, Duke University
Prof. John L. Thompson, Fuller Theological Seminary
Prof. Willem J. van Asselt, University of Utrecht
Prof. Timothy J. Wengert, The Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia
Prof. Henry Zwaanstra, Calvin Theological Seminary

Caspar Olevianus, A Firm Foundation: An Aid to Interpreting the Heidelberg Catechism , translated and edited by Lyle D. Bierma.
John Calvin, The Bondage and Liberation of the Will: A Defence of the Orthodox Doctrine of Human Choice against Pighius , edited by A. N. S. Lane, translated by G. I. Davies.
Law and Gospel: Philip Melanchthon’s Debate with John Agricola of Eisleben over Poenitentia , by Timothy J. Wengert.
Martin Luther as Prophet, Teacher, and Hero: Images of the Reformer, 1520-1620 , by Robert Kolb.
Melanchthon in Europe: His Work and Influence beyond Wittenberg , edited by Karin Maag.
Reformation and Scholasticism: An Ecumenical Enterprise , edited by Willem J. van Asselt and Eef Dekker.
The Binding of God: Calvin’s Role in the Development of Covenant Theology , by Peter A. Lillback.
Divine Discourse: The Theological Methodology of John Owen , by Sebastian Rehnman.
Heinrich Bullinger and the Doctrine of Predestination: Author of “the Other Reformed Tradition” ? by Cornelis P. Venema.
Architect of Reformation: An Introduction to Heinrich Bullinger, 1504-1575 , edited by Bruce Gordon and Emidio Campi.
An Introduction to the Heidelberg Catechism: Sources, History, and Theology , by Lyle D. Bierma, with Charles D. Gunnoe, Jr, Karin Y. Maag, and Paul W. Fields.

© 2005 by Lyle D. Bierma
Published by Baker Academic a division of Baker Publishing Group P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287 www.bakeracademic.com
Ebook edition created 2013
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means for example, electronic, photocopy, recording without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
ISBN 978-1-4412-0662-6
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
Table of Contents
Cover
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contributors
Series Preface
Preface
Part 1: Historical Introduction
1. The Reformation of the Palatinate and the Origins of the Heidelberg Catechism, 1500-1562
Charles D. Gunnoe Jr .
2. The Purpose and Authorship of the Heidelberg Catechism
Lyle D. Bierma
3. The Sources and Theological Orientation of the Heidelberg Catechism
Lyle D. Bierma
4. Early Editions and Translations of the Heidelberg Catechism
Karin Y. Maag
5. Bibliography of Research on the Heidelberg Catechism since 1900
Paul W. Fields
Part 2: Translations of Ursinus’s Catechisms
Introduction
Lyle D. Bierma
The Smaller Catechism
The Larger Catechism
Notes
Back Cover
Contributors
LYLE D. BIERMA (Ph.D., Duke University) is Professor of Systematic Theology at Calvin Theological Seminary, Grand Rapids, Michigan, and editor of the Calvin Theological Journal .
PAUL W. FIELDS (M.L.S., Syracuse University) is Theological Librarian and curator of the H. Henry Meeter Center for Calvin Studies at Calvin College and Calvin Theological Seminary, Grand Rapids, Michigan.
CHARLES D. GUNNOE JR. (Ph.D., University of Virginia) is Associate Professor of History and chairperson of the Department of History, Aquinas College, Grand Rapids, Michigan.
KARIN Y. MAAG (Ph.D., University of St. Andrews) is director of the H. Henry Meeter Center for Calvin Studies at Calvin College and Calvin Theological Seminary and Associate Professor of History at Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Series Preface
The heritage of the Reformation is of profound importance to the church in the present day. Yet there remain many significant gaps in our knowledge of the intellectual development of Protestantism in the sixteenth century, and there are not a few myths about the theology of the Protestant orthodox writers of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. These gaps and myths, frequently caused by ignorance of the scope of a particular thinker’s work, by negative generations, or by an intellectual imperialism of the present that singles out some thinkers and ignores others regardless of their relative significance to their own times, stand in the way of a substantive encounter with this important period in our history. Understanding and appropriation of that heritage can occur only through the publication of significant works monographs and sound, scholarly translations that present the breadth and detail of the thought of the Reformers and their successors.
Texts and Studies in Reformation and Post-Reformation Thought proposes to make available such works as Caspar Olevianus’s Firm Foundation , Theodore Beza’s Table of Predestination , and Jerome Zanchi’s Confession of Faith , together with significant monographs on traditional Reformed theology, under the guidance of an editorial board of recognized scholars in the field. Major older works, like Heppe’s Reformed Dogmatics , will be reprinted or reissued with new introductions. These works, moreover, are intended to address two groups: an academic and a confessional or churchly audience. The series recognizes the need for careful, scholarly treatment of the Reformation and of the era of Protestant orthodoxy, given the continuing literature as well as the recent interest in reappraising the relationship of the Reformation to Protestant orthodoxy. In addition, however, the series hopes to provide the church at large with worthy documents from its rich heritage and thereby to support and to stimulate interest in the roots of the Protestant tradition.
Richard A. Muller
Preface
Both parts of this book were inspired by the work of Dr. Fred H. Klooster (1922-2003), Professor of Systematic Theology at Calvin Theological Seminary from 1956-1988 and one of the world’s leading authorities on the Heidelberg Catechism. Prof. Klooster began teaching a seminar on the HC in 1963, and his interest in the subject eventually led to a sabbatical research year in Heidelberg (1968-1969), several journal articles, a 468-page unpublished manuscript on “The Heidelberg Catechism: Origin and History” (1981), a collection of introductory adult education presentations entitled A Mighty Comfort: The Christian Faith according to the Heidelberg Catechism (1990), and a magisterial 2-volume commentary, Our Only Comfort: A Comprehensive Commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism (2001). In the 1980s he and one of his students also produced an unpublished English translation of two major sources for the HC, the Smaller and Larger Catechisms of Zacharias Ursinus.
Several years ago Prof. Klooster asked me if I would take responsibility for getting his historical volume and translation of Ursinus’s catechisms into publishable form. The latter proved easier than the former. Because of difficulties encountered in reworking his history of the Heidelberg Catechism, it was agreed that I and a small team of scholars would write an entirely new historical introduction, with Klooster’s manuscript as one of our resources. Therefore, besides my own chapters and revised translation of Ursinus’s catechisms, I am pleased to include contributions by historians Charles Gunnoe and Karin Maag and theological librarian Paul Fields. In honor of Prof. Klooster and his forty years of outstanding work on the HC, we dedicate this book to him.
Special thanks are due the administration and trustees of Calvin Seminary for granting me a six-month sabbatical leave in 2003 to complete this book. I also wish to thank my colleague at Calvin Seminary, Richard Muller, for his encouragement throughout this project and for offering to include it in the series Texts and Studies in Reformation & Post-Reformation Thought . Finally, I am grateful to freelance editor Jan Ortiz for her careful work in copyediting and formatting the text.
A few paragraphs in Chapter 2 were first published in my article “Olevianus and the Authorship of the Heidelberg Catechism: Another Look,” The Sixteenth Century Journal 13, no. 4 (1982): 17-27, and in my chapter “ Vester Grundt and the Origins of the Heidelberg Catechism,” in Later Calvinism: International Perspectives , ed. W. Fred Graham (Kirksville, Mo.: Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers, 1994), 289-309, and are reprinted here with permission.
Lyle D. Bierma Calvin Theological Seminary

1
The Reformation of the Palatinate and the Origins of the Heidelberg Catechism, 1500-1562
Charles D. Gunnoe Jr.
The city of Heidelberg is famed for its romantic setting along the Neckar River and especially for its impressive castle ruins, which loom over the old city a large part of which was built during the Reformation period. As the home of the oldest university within the current boundaries of Germany and of scholarly luminaries such as Max Weber and Karl Jaspers, it is also rightly renowned as an intellectual center. The famous fossil remains of a hominid known as Heidelberg Man ( homo heidelbergensis ) were found a few kilometers southeast of Heidelberg in 1907. The city was also one of the few German towns to escape World War II relatively unscathed, and over the last decades, thousands of Americans have come to know Heidelberg as the headquarters of the U.S. Army in Europe.
For Reformed Protestants, however, the city is chiefly famous for lending its name to the Heidelberg Catechism. While the HC is a defining confessional document of Reformed Protestantism, when seen from the broader perspective of central Europ