Book Review: "Martin Luther's Ninety-Five Theses"

I was planning to read this last weekend when the anniversary actually happened, but there was too much going on I guess.  Martin Luther's Ninety-Five Theses introduced and edited by Stephen J. Nichols is short, easy to read, and at the same time, packs in a lot of background information.

If you're simply curious what that document was, what was in it and what spurned Luther into writing it, this is definitely the little book for you.  I like that there are explanations or background information for some of the theses.  However, the physical format leaves a little to be desired.  The "notes" (or whatever you want to call them) are on the left hand page and the theses on the right.  When you're used to just flipping to the next page and reading on, it gets a little confusing.  I'm thinking they could have done that a little differently.

Otherwise, I liked the simplicity of the language in the introduction and the easy-to-understand translation of the original Latin or subsequent German.  It gives just enough of the details without being overwhelming and explains things in a way I found easy to comprehend.  It would be a good introduction to the material for someone otherwise unfamiliar with it.