I had very high hopes for this series and, perhaps because I had such high hopes, was disappointed in it. Many of the articles reflect dated (40-year old) scholarship. Perhaps the best example of the worst of the Encyclopedia is the entry on Zanchi which was written by Otto Gruendler, whose work on Zanchi has been subject to scathing and justifiable criticism, and it reflected none of the more modern scholarship on Zanchi that radically revises the picture Gruendler painted in the early 60s.

The entry on the Luther Renaissance is much better, but over all the quality of the entries is uneven. This is true to some degree with every such series but I have found several entries (another example: the entry on Olevianus is by someone with whose work I am completely unfamliar and is not entirely correct) to be disappointing.

An encyclopedia of this sort should provide an academically reliable, relatively neutral, or at least fair, introduction to a field/topic/subject and to the primary and secondary literature in that field. Such a large project will not likely be undertaken again for some time and such a project will color the way students look at the Reformation for a long time, until the next such Encyclopedia is done.

In general I think the Cambridge series of "Handbook to" has done a better, if less comprehensive, job of introducing readers to modern Reformation scholarship.

It's worth consulting but it is (or was) a very expensive series running several hundred American dollars. We have it our reference room but, if it means anything, I have not purchased it and would have done had they done a better job with it.

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R. Scott Clark, D.Phil
Professor of Church History and Historical Theology

"For Christ, His Gospel, and His Church"
Associate Pastor
Oceanside URC
The Heidelblog