Saturday, January 24, 2009

Coming Soon from Eerdmans: Friends of Calvin

This Spring Eerdmans will be releasing Friends of Calvin by Machiel A. van den Berg (translated by Reinder Bruinsma). Since I've been reading about Calvin lately this title interests me quite a bit. The catalog says "We meet his famous Reformer friends, such as Martin Bucer, William Farel, Heinrich Bullinger, Theodore Beza, and John Knox, but also friends whose names are more obscure: his cousin Pierre Robert Olivetan, the first translator of the Bible into French; Rene de France of French Royalty; Laurent de Normandie, the mayor of Nayon who later escaped to Geneva; Pierre Viret, his 'best friend of all'; and Idelette van Buren, his beloved wife during their brief but 'blissful' marriage." It continues, "Peppered with quotations from Calvin's voluminous letters, Friends of Calvin abounds with secret court relationships, love affairs, death threats, poisonings, and narrow midnight escapes from the pursuing authorities--showing a full-blooded and dangerous side of the bookish Reformer's life." It will be a paperback and sell for $20.00, 240 pages with 25 illustrations. Machiel A. van den Berg is a Reformed preacher living in the Netherlands and regularly publishes articles about the history of the Reformation and about Calvin in particular.

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