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WORK TITLE: Astrology and Reformation
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE:
CITY: Davidson
STATE: NC
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/robarnes1/ * https://www.davidson.edu/news/history-news/161212-robin-barnes-awarded-book-prize * https://global.oup.com/academic/product/astrology-and-reformation-9780199736058?cc=us&lang=en&#
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Married Ann Lee Bressler (a historian); children: two.
EDUCATION:Colby College, graduated; University of Virginia, Ph.D.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer, historian, and educator. Davidson College, NC, professor emeritus.
AVOCATIONS:Sailing, spending time outdoors.
AWARDS:Roland H. Bainton Prize, Sixteenth Century Society and Conference, for Astrology and Reformation.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Robin B. Barnes is a writer, historian, and educator based in Davidson, NC. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Colby College and a Ph.D. from the University of Virginia. Barnes holds the position of professor emeritus in the history department at Davidson College.
Prophecy and Gnosis
In 1988, Barnes released his first book, Prophecy and Gnosis: Apocalypticism in the Wake of the Lutheran Reformation. The main argument he makes in the volume is that Lutherans were more interested in Biblical prophecy regarding the end times than were Puritans, though many historians have suggested otherwise. Barnes analyzes hundreds of early Lutheran texts, highlighting elements that support his thesis. He offers information about culture and religion at the time and explains how it affects the beliefs of the early Lutherans. Barnes identifies connections between popular philosophy during the late medieval era and Lutheran beliefs. He also analyzes the beliefs on eschatology held by Martin Luther, the founder of the Lutheran sect of Christianity. Luther thought that the Antichrist in the Bible referred to the papacy and that the end times were near.
In a review of Prophecy and Gnosis that appeared on the Digital Commons @ Andrews University Web site, Daniel Augsburger noted that it represented “a new frontier in the study of the Lutheran movement.” Augburger added: “Because of the mass of information it contains, the book requires careful reading, especially due to the fact that the author has chosen a thematic approach which, at times, makes the chronological framework difficult to follow. But the reading of this book is a must for anyone who is interested in the history of eschatology or Lutheran theology.”
Astrology and Reformation
Barnes’s 2016 volume, Astrology and Reformation, received the Sixteenth Century Society and Conference’s Roland H. Bainton Prize. In the book, he focuses on the Lutheran Reformation and explains how it connected to astrology, which was popular in Germany at the time of the Reformation. Barnes notes that popular belief holds that Christianity and astrology have always been inherently at odds with one another. However, he argues that astrology and Lutheranism coexisted peacefully at the time of the Reformation. In fact, the apocalyptic notions associated with that strain of astrology made people more open to the eschatological beliefs in Lutheranism. Barnes explains that astrology and Lutheranism finally clashed during the early-seventeenth century.
Referring to Barnes, Choice writer, J. Harrie, suggested: “He uses a wide range of sources produced for a broad reading public.” Harrie also categorized the book as “recommended.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Choice, June, 2016, J. Harrie, review of Astrology and Reformation, p. 1535.
ONLINE
Digital Commons @ Andrews University, http://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/ (May 30, 2017), Daniel Augsburger, review of Prophecy and Gnosis: Apocalypticism in the Wake of the Lutheran Reformation.
Stanford University, Religious Studies Web site, http://religiousstudies.stanford.edu/ (May 30, 2017), author profile.*
Robin Barnes grew up in Ho-Ho-Kus, New Jersey. A graduate of Colby College in Waterville, Maine, he received a doctorate in European history from the University of Virginia. Since 1980 he has lived in Davidson, North Carolina with his wife Ann Lee Bressler, the mother of their two grown children and also an historian. After family, friends, learning, and teaching, he harbors aspirations as a sailor and outdoorsman.
CMEMS workshop with Robin Barnes (Davidson College). Sponsored by the Center for Medieval and Early Modern Studies, the Program in the History and Philosophy of Science, and the Department of Religious Studies. Stanford affiliates are invited to join us for lunch and discussion.
Robin Barnes is Professor of History emeritus at Davidson College. His research focuses on the cultural history of early modern Europe, and particularly on apocalypticism, prophecy, and astrology in Germany. He is the author of Prophecy and Gnosis: Apocalypticism in the Wake of the Lutheran Reformation (Stanford University Press, 1988) and, most recently, Astrology and Reformation (Oxford University Press, 2015).
Astrology and Reformation, winner of the Roland H. Bainton Prize awarded by the Sixteenth Century Society and Conference, argues for a new assessment of the relationship between the Reformation and the science of the stars, based on analysis of the astrological writings and culture that permeated late medieval and early modern Germany.
Participants are also invited to read the introduction and conclusion to the book, which is available through Oxford Scholarship
QUOTED: "He uses a wide range of sources produced for a broad reading public."
"recommended."
Barnes, Robin B.: Astrology and Reformation
J. Harrie
53.10 (June 2016): p1535.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 American Library Association CHOICE
http://www.ala.org/acrl/choice/about
Barnes, Robin B. Astrology and Reformation. Oxford, 2016. 389p index afp ISBN 9780199736058 cloth, $74.00; ISBN 9780190250096 ebook, contact publisher for price
53-4547
BR307
2015-9980 CIP
Barnes (Davidson College), a historian of early modern astrology, prophecy, and millenarianism, examines the intimate connections between the flourishing astrological culture of premodern German towns and the birth and development of the Lutheran evangelical movement, providing an important corrective to the historiography of the Reformation, which has long assumed the incompatibility of astrology and Christian faith. He uses a wide range of sources produced for a broad reading public, especially almanacs (calendars) and prognostications (practica) but including planet books, comet tracts, weather treatises, and much else to argue that the astrological culture of imperial Germany prepared the way for Luther's movement by creating an atmosphere of apocalyptic anxiety. It also shaped Germany's distinctive reformation, in which Lutheran townspeople saw the stars as "a God-given text that complemented the Bible" even as it fostered a pessimistic, conservative confessional identity. Barnes credits Philipp Melanchthon with legitimizing the union of the stars and the Gospel, influencing generations of burghers. Lutheran culture welcomed the synthesis of astrology and biblical teaching for over a century, but the early-17th-century crisis of piety undermined the alliance, leaving doctrines that discredited both astrological and biblical apocalyptic prophecy. Summing Up: ** Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.--J. Harrie, California State University, Bakersfield
Harrie, J.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Harrie, J. "Barnes, Robin B.: Astrology and Reformation." CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, June 2016, p. 1535+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA454942958&it=r&asid=d388fc5875d24c943209c949611ac14f. Accessed 3 May 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A454942958
QUOTED: "a new frontier in the study of the Lutheran movement."
"Because of the mass of information it contains, the book requires careful reading, especially due to the fact that the author has chosen a thematic approach which, at times, makes the chronological framework difficult to follow. But the reading of this book is a must for anyone who is interested in the history of eschatology or Lutheran theology."
Daniel Augsburger
In Prophecy a d Gnosis, Robin Barnes opens a new frontier in the study of the Lutheran movement. Challenging the deeply rooted belief that the Puritans were the foremost Protestant students of Biblical prophecy, Barnes affirms: "[Puritan] England saw only a weak reflection of the eschatological excitement that obtained among the Lutherans" (5). After reading this work one must be convinced that justification by faith cannot be separated from eschatology in early Lutheran theology.
Barnes supports his thesis with the careful analysis of materials from more than 500 books and pamphlets published during the first century of Lutheranism. He places those writings in their cultural and historical contexts and thus gives his work the additional value of a demonstration of how culture and history affect theology.
While Barnes' main concern is for Luther's successors, he shows clearly the debt of Lutheranism to late medieval thought and clarifies several aspects of the Saxon reformer's ideas on eschatology. For instance, he points out that Luther's main contribution was his belief that Antichrist was not an individual wicked pope or king still to come but an institution, the papacy. He also shows how Luther's understanding of the end was closely bound with his view of the unconscious condition of the dead in the grave. He could also have written that the concept simul justus et peccator made it impossible to believe, as did Calvinists, in the possibility of establishing a kingdom of Christ on earth.
Luther's main theme, however, was the imminence and hiddenness of the end. His followers, on the other hand, tried to find the proper method of reading biblical prophecy to determine when that event would come. In their eagerness they turned to every other source of speculation on the future to try to solve the puzzle. Publishing interests fostered the flood of books on the topic. This obsession with biblical prophecy was reflected in the painting of biblical, prophetic symbols on clocks.
By his study of numerology, Michael Stifel came to the conclusion that Christ would return in 1533.Because Christ had announced that there would be signs in the heavens, many tried to read the book of Revelation in the light of astrology. From celestial events in 1571, for instance, the date of 1588 was set for the end. From a new star in 1604, Paul Nagel reckoned the date 1618. Some even believed that it took a certain spiritual gift to interpret prophecy, a gift that was also found among the heathen,
160 SEMINARY STUDIES
and thus the Sibyline Oracles and other classical oracles were included in those eschatological speculations.
The main sign for many was the preaching of the gospel by Luther, seen as a fulfillment of Jesus' promise that the gospel would be preached and then the end would come. Likewise the flourishing of so many heresies, such as Calvinism, Anabaptism, and Antitrinitarianism, was interpreted as the fulfillment of the announcement of the coming of many false prophets. One is struck by the way eschatology fostered the study of history, natural science, and even mathematics.
The approach of the Thirty Years War with its election of a Calvinist to the throne of Bohemia and the renewed belligerence of Catholicism increased the excitement. The field became a true Babel of confusion, and there arose a polarization between the eschatologists and the exponents of the new Protestant scholasticism, who branded eschatological speculation as spiritual pride or ignorance, an accusation made credible by the total failure of the many efforts to identify events of the war with prophetic announcements. Thus the eschatological ferment came to an end. A per- sonal quest for piety replaced in Pietism the hope of a collective divine transformation of all things.
Because of the mass of information it contains, the book requires careful reading, especially due to the fact that the author has chosen a thematic approach which, at times, makes the chronological framework difficult to follow. But the reading of this book is a must for anyone who is interested in the history of eschatology or Lutheran theology.