Martin Luther’s Exegetical Use of the Epistle of St. James

Dennis Clare Stoutenburg successfully completed the doctorate at the University of Strasbourg, France during which time he studied Histoire Modern with Luther scholar, Marc Lienhard, professor for the Centre d’Études Œcuméniques (Center for Ecumenical Studies, created by the Lutheran World Federation). In preparation, Stoutenburg previously studied ecclesiastical history under the direction of Professor John Woodbridge, Research Professor of Church History and the History of Christian Thought. Woodbridge – who formerly earned the doctorate and taught at the University of Toulouse, as well as at the Hautes Etudes, Sorbonne, in France – was the primary inspiration in encouraging Stoutenburg to continue his studies in France. During five years of research for Luther’s Exegetical Use of James, in which Stoutenburg read Luther’s Works in its entirety three times, he corresponded with emeritus professor Roland Bainton (Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther) about his findings that included evidence that Luther originally based his September Testament of 1520 on Erasmus’ critical Greek edition that excluded the antilegomena, including James. However, in the December Testament of the same year, Luther had not only reintroduced the antilegomena but also numbered them in the original canonical order of the 27 books, countering Erasmus’ initial influence on Luther. Stoutenburg offers compelling evidence that Luther not only respected James as a canonical text, but contextualizes passages that historians argue would otherwise support a view that Luther rejected James from the canon, instead arguing that dismissal of the book should be ascribed to subsequent schools of Luther scholarship rather than to Luther himself.