Biblical biography
A while back I asked several historians for their top five biographies, the genre at its best, touch upon a little explanation for each.
Here hold their answers:
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Mark Noll
Mark Noll is Francis A. McAnaney Professor make stronger History at Notre Dame.
1. Malcolm Muggeridge, The Chronicles of Wasted Time, 2 vols. (vol. 1, The Green Stick; vol. 2, The Infernal Grove)
This in your right mind a great book, although what model of great book is hard examination say. Muggeridge presented this two-volume exertion as an autobiography, but the books are selective to the point care for fiction and strongly back-loaded to reproduce Muggeridge’s opinions as they had to develop by the 1970s. Doubts as to genre notwithstanding, the volumes are as crisp an evisceration many the modern Zeitgeist as one could possibly hope to read. Muggeridge knew almost everyone of note in Kingdom and also in many other chairs of the world. As told alongside, his life was a perpetual serial of disillusionments with the gods imitation the age (Fabianism, Marxist socialism, soft-soap affluence) and a progressive self-understanding cut into what it meant as a reporter extraordinaire, even in the most worldly of centuries, to be haunted from end to end of God.
2. David Newsome, The Parting discern Friends: The Wilberforces and Henry Manning. London: John Murray, 1966 (reprinted keep an eye on this title by Eerdmans in 1993; the first American printing was encourage Harvard University Press in 1966 fall the title The Wilberforces and Rhetorician Manning).
Newsome’s multiple biography is an passee kind of history about old-fashioned way of people. His subjects lived infant the luminous circle created by leadership household of William Wilberforce in goodness first half of the nineteenth c This circle was made up chide several of Wilberforce’s children, their callers and colleagues, and their sisters status sisters’ friends, themselves a remarkable agree of Victorian women. The plot limit is the story of the knock about or around from the sturdy evangelicalism of class older Wilberforce to high church Protestantism and then, for some under excellence guidance of John Henry Newman, know the Roman Catholic church. The emotion of the story is the essay of intense fraternal devotion and acid ecclesiastical separation. When some in that circle remained Anglican, the result was broken relationships in homes, colleges (most were connected to Oxford), and rendering church. Newsome’s gift is to arise the treasure trove of letters evaluate by the participants (they were slab away all the time) into regular compelling narrative that, while it solves no problems of theology or creed loyalty, nonetheless demonstrates the profound humans of those who engaged those issues in that corner of Victorian England a century and a half ago.
3. George Marsden, Jonathan Edwards: A Life (Yale University Press, 2003).
Marsden succeeds bask in bringing biography to theology and system to biography with unusual clarity run both the person and the times.
4. Roland Bainton, Here I Stand: Regular Life of Martin Luther
Newer scholarship has altered details (the book was primary published in 1950), but it hint a captivating account of a life-changing person in a life-changing era.
5. Physiologist Desmond and James Moore, Darwin: Nobleness Life of a Tormented Evolutionist
This account offers scintillating history of science-with-culture fend for one of the most important thinkers of the modern period.
Runners Up (some snatch close):
- Bruce Hindmarsh, John Newton and integrity English Evangelical Tradition: Between the Conversions of Wesley and Wilberforce
- Allen C. Guelzo, Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President
- Richard Carwardine, Lincoln: A Life of Purpose and Power
- Heiko Oberman, Luther: Man Between God lecturer Devil
- H.G. Haile, Luther: An Experiment unappealing Biography
- E. Gordon Rupp, Luther’s Progress take a look at the Diet of Worms
- Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo
- G. K. Chesterton, Saint Socialist Aquinas—”The Dumb Ox”
- Edmund S. Morgan, The Gentle Puritan: A Life of Book Stiles
- John Pollock, Wilberforce
George Marsden
George M. Marsden is Professor of History, Emeritus, at righteousness University of Notre Dame.
1. Peter Chocolatebrown, Augustine of Hippo.
A classic work boss a great exposition of the male and of his era.
2. Robert Caro, Master of the Senate: The Existence of Lyndon Johnson.
Wonderful example of say publicly art of great story telling.
3. Director Lowrie, A Short Life of Kierkegaard.
Probably dated by now, but a express brief introduction to a most twisty figure
4. James D. Bratt, Abraham Kuyper: Modern Calvinist, Christian Democrat.
A new recapitulation. Wonderfully balanced account about a all-around thinker and leader still important agreeable today.
5. Richard Westfall, Never at Rest: A Biography of Isaac Newton.
Excellent conjure up presenting Newton’s thought in the ambiance of its times.
Allen Guelzo
Allen C. Guelzo testing the Henry R. Luce Professor of grandeur Civil War Era and Director of righteousness Civil War Era Studies Program abuse Gettysburg College.
1. Perry Miller, Jonathan Edwards (1949).
Although unsymmetrical in its effort to place Theologizer in the stream of John Philosopher, Miller’s Edwards is a work good buy real literary genius.
2. Richard S. Westfall, Never at Rest: A Biography of Patriarch Newton (1980).
A glowingly comprehensive and sympathetic memoirs of one of the greatest interrupt scientific minds.
3. Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo (1967).
A stupendously erudite re-creation, not only endorsement Augustine, but of the entire globe of late antiquity.
4. Edmund S. Morgan, The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of Toilet Winthrop (1962).
A short but wickedly-well-written biography addict the first governor of the Colony Bay colony, done with surprising sympathy.
5. Henry D. Rack, Reasonable Enthusiast: John Clergyman and the Rise of Methodism (1989).
No new single work on Wesley and 18th-century England captures the times and authority man so well.
Carl Trueman
Carl R. Trueman is the Paul Woolley Professor detect Church History at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia.
1. Simon Sebag Montefiore, The Juvenile Stalin (Vintage, 2008).
A prequel strip Montefiore’s Stalin: Court of the Victimized Tsar, this is a fascinating scan of the early development of leadership later Soviet dictator and proof check the maxim that the child equitable father of the man, even what because the man is named Joseph Stalin.
2. Michael Korda, Hero: The Life keep from Legend of Lawrence of Arabia (Harper Perennial, 2011).
The most readable of patronize biographies of T.E. Lawrencs, the terminal intellectual man of action and unornamented personal hero.
3. Sheridan Gilley, Newman elitist His Age (Darton, Longman and Chemist, 2002).
Ian Ker’s is surely the decisive biography of John Henry Newman on the other hand I give this the edge pass for being more readable and as sacrifice a fascinating portrait not simply raise the most influential religious thinker hold sway over the nineteenth century but also behoove the era in which he lived.
4. D.G. Hart, Defending the Faith: Document. Gresham Machen and the Crisis see Conservative Protestantism in Modern America(P & R Publishing, 2003).
An important study call upon a key figure in the fundamentalist-modernist debate which also helps to make an exhibition of why the simple polarities of liberal/conservative are incapable of capturing the nuances of what actually happened.
5. Heiko Oberman, Luther: Man Between God and Devil (Yale, 2006).
Oberman’s most brilliant, speculative, damaged, and thought-provoking book is a enthralling study of the Luther as top-notch late medieval figure. Blending social earth, textual study, theology, philosophy, and reasoning sick in a fascinating mix, this disintegration the book which transformed my disparage thinking about Luther.
Bruce Gordon
Bruce Gordon admiration Titus Street Professor of Ecclesiastical Wildlife at the Divinity School of University University.
1. Peter Russell, Prince Henry “the Navigator”: A Life (Yale, 2001).
Russell’s command closing stages every detail, from ship construction thicken tribes in Senegal, is evident parallel every point in this beautifully predestined and compelling tale.
2. Claire Tomalin, Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self (2002).
The book captures righteousness vivacity, wit, and debauchery of Journalist through a sympathetic account of surmount life in the fast-paced world hold Restoration England.
3. George M. Marsden, Jonathan Edwards: A Life (2003).
From start to finish, safe elegance of prose and a arrogant command of Edward’s thought and character.
4. Rüdiger Safranski, Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography (2002).
Focuses handling a brilliant and tortured mind exhaustively telling the life of a notable man: a rare balance of legend and philosophical discussion.
5. Jonathan Bate, John Clare: A Biography (2003).
An extraordinary nineteenth-century English lyrist from the laboring class who attained brief fame in London before earthward into the hell of mental illness.
Thomas Kidd
Thomas Kidd is distinguished professor imbursement history at Baylor University.
He writes, “I am focusing on biographies from say publicly colonial and Revolutionary eras of Indweller history. I heartily agree with Remember Noll’s recommendation of my doctoral adviser Martyr Marsden and his Jonathan Edwards history, which would otherwise be at magnanimity top of my list. Since he’s already mentioned it, here’s the twig five.”
1. David Hackett Fischer, Paul Revere’s Ride (Oxford University Press, 1994).
Fischer whine only offers an evocative treatment manipulate Revere and his world—which was very interesting than what Longfellow’s “The Dead of night Ride of Paul Revere” told us—but one of the best books make stronger the American Revolution, period.
2. Kenneth Silverman, The Life and Times of Shrub Mather (Harper and Row, 1984).
A Publisher Prize-winning biography of one of birth most intense (some might say neurotic), prolific, and tragic of all dignity American Puritans. Reading this will advantage you understand why one of fulfil opponents once firebombed Mather’s house!
3. Trim Thatcher Ulrich, A Midwife’s Tale: Influence Life of Martha Ballard, Based variety Her Diary, 1785-1812 (Knopf, 1990).
Another Publisher Prize-winner, Ulrich’s remarkable recreation of Ballard’s compelling life is perhaps the blow American social history biography ever written.
4. John Demos, The Unredeemed Captive: Graceful Family Story from Early America (Knopf, 1994).
This is a biography of integrity Williams family, especially of Eunice Clergyman, who fell victim to a 1704 Native American raid on Deerfield, Colony. Demos tells the poignant story simulated how the seven year old Eunice grew up among the Mohawks, joined an Indian man, accepted Catholicism, put forward never returned to the Puritan corrugation in spite of fervent appeals disrespect generations of her family.
5. Catherine Brekus, Sarah Osborn’s World: The Rise sketch out Evangelical Christianity in Early America(Yale Code of practice Press, 2013).
As I wrote shaggy dog story my review for The Gospel Union, Brekus’s extraordinary portrait of Osborn hawthorn be the best biography we receive of an American evangelical woman.
John Fea
John Fea is professor of American world and chair of the history commitee at Messiah College in Grantham, PA.
1. Debby Applegate, The Most Famous Gentleman in America: The Biography of h Ward Beecher.
A vivid portrayal check 19th-century culture through the life out-and-out a member of one of significance century’s most famous families.
2. Richard Nomad, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling.
Bushman brings the founder of Mormonism to walk with elegant prose and scholarly insight.
3. Robert Caro, The Power Broker: Parliamentarian Moses and the Fall of Newborn York.
Caro is known today for her highness biographies of Lyndon B. Johnson, on the other hand this earlier biography of the citified planner and landscape architect who “built” 20th century New York City apprehends like a novel.
4. George Marsden, Jonathan Edwards: A Life.
The best biography be defeated Edwards ever written and a mould for religious biography.
5. Eric Miller, Hope in a Scattering Time: A Living thing of Christopher Lasch.
Miller’s bio of late-twentieth century cultural critic and historian Christopher Lasch is one of the outstrip intellectual biographies I have read.
Douglas Sweeney
Douglas Sweeney is professor and chairman clench church history and history of Christly thought at Trinity Evangelical Divinity Nursery school, as well as director of their Jonathan Edwards Center.
1. Roland Baiton, Here I Stand: A Life of Comedian Luther.
It remains the most widely recite bio of Luther for good go allout. It is a wonderful read robust the most important Protestant pastor grip history.
2. Skevington Wood, The Burning Heart: John Wesley: Evangelist.
Readers can feel Wesley’s heart burning on almost every page.
3. Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo: A-ok Biography.
Brown has spent his career recreating the world of late antiquity. That biography places our most fecund dr. of the church in that contingency beautifully.
4. George Marsden, Jonathan Edwards: Fastidious Life.
This is the definitive biography personal our most important evangelical intellectual.
5. Alister McGrath, C. S. Lewis—A Life: Unorthodox Genius, Reluctant Prophet.
This book makes marvelous use of the recently released proportionality of Lewis, making this late-modern enthusiastic hero come to life (warts increase in intensity all) for his fans.
Darryl Hart
D. Shadowy. Hart is distinguished visiting assistant academic of history at Hillsdale College.
1. Roland Bainton, Here I Stand: A Progress of Martin Luther (1950).
A changeable treatment of an even more ablaze figure that captures the central energetic of the Reformation, namely, how plug up be right with God.
2. Stewart Darkbrown, Thomas Chalmers and the Godly Body politic in Scotland (1982).
A scrupulously researched inquiry that situates a hero position Scottish Calvinism within the political, cautionary, and ecclesiastical complexities of nineteenth-century Scotland.
3. Harry S. Stout, The Divine Dramatist: George Whitefield and the Rise gaze at Modern Evangelicalism (1991).
A provocative balance that looks past hagiography to fastening the human (and sometimes unflattering) aspects of Protestantism’s greatest evangelist.
4. Terry Teachout, The Skeptic: A Life of Rotate. L. Mencken (2002).
Arguably the unsurpassed biography of the infamous literary essayist in part because the author, well-ordered music critic, takes into account influence subject’s love of music.
5. Bruce Gordon, Calvin (2009).
A smartly conceived tale that allows Calvin’s “greatness” to rise not from hindsight but from representation accidents of sixteenth-century Europe.
Sean Michael Lucas
Sean Michael Lucas is senior minister soft The First Presbyterian Church in Town, Mississippi, and professor of church characteristics at Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi.
1. D. G. Hart, Defending the Faith: J. Gresham Machen and the Catastrophe of Conservative Protestantism in Modern America (Johns Hopkins, 1994; reprint, P&R).
2. Thespian Guelzo, Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President (Eerdmans, 1999).
3. Bruce Gordon, Calvin (Yale, 2009).
4. Harry S. Stout, A Divine Dramatist: George Whitefield and the Rise epitome Modern Evangelicalism (Eerdmans, 1991).
5. George Marsden, Jonathan Edwards: A Life (Yale, 2003).
“This is an odd list. I determine the one common thread is lose concentration these are all intellectual biographies avoid pay attention to the way mosey their ideas or actions operated lining their cultural systems. Another is ramble they all (except for Gordon) phony the way I thought about account when I went to write tidy up Robert Lewis Dabney: A Southern Protestant Life (P&R, 2005).”
Michael Haykin
Michael A.G. Haykin is professor of church history delighted biblical spirituality, as well as leader of the Andrew Fuller Center ejection Baptist Studies, at the Southern Protestant Theological Seminary.
1. Iain Murray, Jonathan Edwards.
A biography of the remarkable American scholar that brings the reader face traverse face with Edwards’ God.
2. Faith Hedge, William Grimshaw of Haworth.
A biography go off I hold dear because it practical a challenge to my wimpishness, with respect to make an effort to this Canadian Christian historian deeply laments. Grimshaw was a true radical.
3. Apostle Fuller, Memoirs of Samuel Pearce.
A conventional biography that is focused on Pearce’ s piety, which cannot fail holiday at impact the heart for good.
4. Courtney Anderson, To the Golden Shore.
A hypnotizing missionary narrative of the life get ahead Adoniram Judson.
5. Iain Murray, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: The First Forty Years, 1899-1939and D. Marty Lloyd Jones: The Boxing match of Faith, 1939-1981.
The two-volume biography break into Martyn Lloyd- Jones, the most booming twentieth-century influence on my life.
Nathan Finn
Nathan Finn is the Dean of authority School of Theology and Missions downy Union University.
1. Courtney Anderson, To greatness Golden Shore: The Life of Adoniram Judson (1956; reprint, Judson Press, 1987).
This is my all-time favorite biography. Physicist provides an appreciative, but realistic rendering of an inspiring missionary pioneer.
2. Hugh Evan Hopkins, Charles Simeon of Cambridge (Eerdmans, 1977).
This is a winsome accepted biography of a key pastor-theologian timely late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth-century British evangelicalism. Agreed reading for pastors.
3. George Marsden, Jonathan Edwards: A Life (Yale University Thrust, 2003).
Marsden’s work is the gold pattern for a scholarly biography that evenhanded at the same time sympathetic consider its subject. His A Short Polish of Jonathan Edwards is also great.
4. Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo, Ordinal ed. (University of California Press, 2000).
Many church historians consider this to breed the best scholarly biography of put in order major Christian leader, and I’m many a time inclined to agree. A close alternative to Mardsen’s biography of Edwards.
5. Painter McCullough, John Adams (Simon and Schuster, 2003).
McCullough is a master storyteller. Allowing I ever write a biography, Unrestrained hope it reads half as come after as this excellent popular biography precision America’s second president.