Martin Luther (originally Martin Luder or Martinus Luther) (November 10, 1483 – February 18, 1546) was a German theologian of the Christian religion and an Augustinian monk whose teachings inspired the Protestant Reformation and deeply influenced the doctrines of Protestant and other Christian traditions (a broad movement composed of many congregations and church bodies). His call to the Church to return to the teachings of the Bible resulted in the formation of new traditions within Christianity and the Counter-Reformation in the Roman Catholic Church, culminating at the Council of Trent.
Luther made contributions in fields beyond religion. His translation of the Bible helped to develop a standard version of the German language and added several principles to the art of translation. Luther's hymns sparked the development of congregational singing in Christianity. His marriage on June 13, 1525 to Katharina von Bora began the tradition of clerical marriage within several Christian traditions.
Luther translated the New Testament into German to make it more accessible to the commoners and erode the influence of priests. He used the recent critical Greek edition of Erasmus, a text which was later called textus receptus. During his translation, he would make forays into the nearby towns and markets to hear people speak, so that he could write his translation in the language of the people. It was published in 1522.
Luther had a low view of Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelation, and took the liberty of criticizing them. He called the epistle of James 'an epistle of straw', and could not reconcile the epistle with his belief in justification by 'faith alone'. He also had harsh words for the book of Revelation, saying that he could 'in no way detect that the Holy Spirit produced it.'
His first full Bible translation into German, including the Old Testament, was published in 1534. As mentioned earlier, Luther's translation work helped standardize German and are considered landmarks in German literature.
Luther chose to omit parts of the Old Testament that were found in the Greek Septuagint but not in the Hebrew Masoretic texts then available. Those parts were eventually omitted by nearly all Protestants, and are known in Protestant circles as the Apocrypha. See Biblical canon.
In 1529, Frederick asked Luther to tour the local churches to determine the quality of the peasants' Christian education. Luther wrote in the preface to the Small Catechism, "Mercy! Good God! what manifold misery I beheld! The common people, especially in the villages, have no knowledge whatever of Christian doctrine, and, alas! many pastors are altogether incapable and incompetent to teach." In response, Luther prepared the Small and Large Catechisms. They are instructional and devotional material on what Luther considered the fundamentals of the Christian faith, namely the Ten Commandments; the Apostle's Creed; the Lord's Prayer; Baptism; and the Eucharist.
The two catechisms are still popular instructional materials among Lutherans.
The number of books attributed to Martin Luther is nothing short of impressive. However, some Luther scholars contend that many of the works were at least drafted by some of his good friends like Melanchthon. Luther's fame provided a much larger potential audience than his – at least as learned – friends could have obtained under their own name. His books explain the settings of the epistles and show the conformity of the books of the Bible to each other. Of special note would be his writings about the Epistle to the Galatians in which he compares himself to the Apostle Paul in his defense of the Gospel (for example the faith-building commentary in Luther and the Epistle to the Galatians). Luther also wrote about church administration and wrote much about the Christian home.
Luther's writing was very polemical, and when he was passionate about a subject he would often insult his opponents. In the preface to De Servo Arbitrio (The Bondage of the Will), a response to Erasmus's Diatribe seu collatio de libero arbitrio (Discussion, or Collation, concerning free will), Luther writes, "your book ... struck me as so worthless and poor that my heart went out to you for having defiled your lovely, brilliant flow of language with such vile stuff. I thought it outrageous to convey material of so low a quality in the trappings of such rare eloquence; it is like using gold or silver dishes to carry garden rubbish or dung." Luther was quite intolerant of others' beliefs, and this may have exacerbated the German Reformation.
Luther's work contains a number of statements that modern readers would consider rather crude. It should be remembered that Luther received many communications from throughout Europe from people who could write anonymously, that is, without the spectre of mass media making their communications known. No public figure today could write in the manner of the correspondences Luther received or in the way Luther responded to them. Opinions today can be immediately shared electronically with a wide audience. At least one such statement would not be heard from most modern pastors: He regularly told the Devil to kiss his ass.