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83 of 110 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
This is a heavily censored version of Dr. Luther's work, October 16, 2009
This review is from: The Jews and Their Lies (Paperback)
The typical neo-Nazi take on Martin Luther's writing about Judaism and Judaics is to cut out anything critical of the German people, or in praise of Judaic people, or any other moderating, judicious or reasonable dimension to Luther's theses.
This is the case with this censored, hack version of "On the Jews and their Lies." Luther always sought to convert Judaics to Christ and was solicitous of their spiritual welfare, and Luther was often highly critical of German gentiles. Moreover, his early writing on this theme was titled "Jesus Christ was born a Jew" and he did not alter this position even late in his life.
The uncensored edition of "On the Jews and their Lies," translated as Luther wrote it, contains nothing that is unscriptural, and was a salutary influence on Christianity, helping Christians to resist the worldly temptation to fail to tell the truth about rabbinic Judaism, (the modern heir of the ideology of the ancient Pharisees).
Unfortunately, this redacted parody of Luther's book is a disservice to him and a type of falsification just as underhanded as anything ever perpetrated by the rabbis.
(Michael Hoffman is the author of "Judaism Discovered").
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337 of 459 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Do Not Misunderstand Luther..., November 11, 2005
This review is from: The Jews and Their Lies (Paperback)
Being of Jewish decent myself, and understanding how tempting it is to accuse this Reformer of anti-semitism, it is extremely important that one doesn't jump to that conclusion as a result of reading this work. Martin Luther, at the start of his ministry, was pleased that the Jews had not become "Christians" because of the false doctrines that were being perpetrated by the Catholic Church of the 16th century. But after he had a chance to start the Reformation, and the Jews still did not believe in Christ as the promised Messiah, Luther grew perplexed and upset. In this book we do not see a man engaged in racial prejudice, but religious anger. He was not anti-semetic (racist), but anti-Jewish (in the doctrinal sense). His comments are therefore to be taken with a grain of salt and his anger needs to be seen in the light of his frustration with all false teachers - both Jewish and Catholic. Do not read this unless you can understand Luther's reasons for writing such a piece. He could just as easily written a book entitled "Catholics and their Lies" or "Muslims and their Lies" and could have called for the burning down of their places of worship too. In fact, he spent his entire life ministry fighting false doctrine and especially, false teachers.
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68 of 98 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
An horrible abridgement., April 16, 2009
This review is from: The Jews and Their Lies (Paperback)
From the introduction, the offensive artwork and the ham-fisted condensing of the text, the publisher's obvious intent is to titillate ignorant bigots.
The editor and/or translators took care to retain all of Luther's inflammatory invectiveness while omitting his logical arguments and scriptural proofs. There are several sections where brief, parenthetical denotations acknowledge significant omissions in the text, such as "[Here follow lengthy theological treatises based on numerous passages from scripture]" (p. 15). By condescending design, the reader is presented the pure vitriol without any of that egghead Bible and logic stuff that might provide distracting historical and theological context.
Luther's tract On the Jews and Their Lies is a worthwhile read for anyone with serious interest in the Protestant Reformation. Unfortunately, this Liberty Bell Publications edition is essentially worthless in terms of scholarship.
If, however, you just want a little booklet to reinforce anti-Semetic stereotypes, this is a great choice.
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