Bugenhagen's Harmony of Christ's Passion and Resurrection

Abstract

Abstract: As head pastor in Wittenberg and professor at that university during the early Reformation, Johannes Bugenhagen (1485–1558) published works spanning a variety of genres. Of all Bugenhagen's writings, however, his most popular publication was a harmonization of the Gospel accounts of Christ's passion and resurrection. This project spanned Bugenhagen's career, starting in 1519 and continuing with revised published editions over the next thirty-five years. In all, over seventy editions of Bugenhagen's Gospel harmony were published in his lifetime and beyond, appearing in Latin, High German, Low German, Danish, Icelandic, and Polish. While some of the reasons why this significant text is not well known today are discussed here, this essay also describes many of the valuable historical and theological insights that Bugenhagen's harmonization contains as an influential work of the early Lutheran Reformation.