Erik Lundeen is a pastor and church planter in Milwaukee, WI. He holds a PhD in the history of Christianity from Baylor University, USA, and an M.A. and M.Div. from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, USA.

• List of FiguresList of TablesList of AbbreviationsAcknowledgmentsDedicationIntroduction: The Varieties of LiteralismChapter 1: Biblical Humanism and the Quest for TruthChapter 2: Deciphering Figures of Speech with the Church FathersChapter 3: Establishing Authoritative Readings with Medieval ChristiansChapter 4: Finding Coherence and Contemporaneity with Medieval JewsChapter 5: Harvesting the Tradition with the ReformersChapter 6: Debating Referentiality with the ReformersConclusion: The Literal Sense ReconsideredBibliographyIndex

Erik Lundeen’s magisterial study of the way the Protestant Reformers read Old Testament prophecy brings both clarity and order to what might otherwise resemble a Babel-like confusion of sixteenth-century opinions as to what counts as literal interpretation. The Reformation of the Literal accomplishes something the Reformers themselves could not: it makes explicit the implicit assumptions about meaning and interpretation that they, and we, inevitably bring to the all-important task of reading the Bible as the church’s authoritative Scripture.