David Steinmetz (historian)

Taking the Long View. Christian Theology in Historical Perspective New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.

Co-editor with David Bagchi, The Cambridge Companion to Reformation Theology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Hardbound and paperback editions.

Editor, Die Patristik in der Bibelexegese des 16. Jahrhunderts. Wolfenbütteler Forschungen 85. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1999.

In 1996 Steinmetz was honored by his students with a Festschrift, Biblical Interpretation in the Era of the Reformation, and in 2006 was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2008 he and his wife endowed the annual Steinmetz Lectures in Historical Theology. Shortly thereafter (2009) he retired as the Kearns Distinguished Professor Emeritus and was awarded the Distinguished Career Award of the American Society of Church History (2010). At the same time (2010) Emory University offered him a visiting post as the McDonald Distinguished Professor of History, a gift that enabled him to lay the intellectual foundations for his next book, The Catholic Calvin.

Senior Editor, Theology, Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation, 4 vols.. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.

Calvin in Context. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. Hardbound and paperback editions. Second revised and expanded edition, Oxford, 2010.

In addition to his own writings, Steinmetz was the senior editor of Oxford Studies in Historical Theology, Oxford University Press, 1994- .

Editor, The Bible in the Sixteenth Century, Duke University Monographs in Medieval and Renaissance Studies11, Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1990. Paperback edition, 1996.

Memory and Mission: Theological Reflections on the Christian Past. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1988.

In addition to his reputation as a productive scholar, Steinmetz was known as a lively and entertaining lecturer, who could win over students disinclined to take history seriously, No one was therefore surprised when he won a teaching prize in 1986 and was named the Duke University Scholar/Teacher of the year. His prose style, written and spoken, was admired by critics for its clarity, its elegance, and its dry humor.

Luther in Context. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986. Hardbound and paperback editions. New paperback edition, Baker, 1995. Revised and expanded second edition, Baker, 2002.

Steinmetz taught courses at Duke in four departments: the historical division of the Divinity School, the joint program in Graduate Religion, the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, and the Department of German. In 1985 he was elected president of the American Society of Church History. In 1986 he was chosen as the first president of the American Friends of the Herzog August Bibliothek in Germany.

Luther and Staupitz: An Essay in the Intellectual Origins of the Protestant Reformation. Duke University Monographs in Medieval and Renaissance Studies 4. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1980.

Reformers in the Wings. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971. Paperback edition: Grand Rapids: Baker, 1981. Reformers in the Wings: From Geiler von Kaysersberg to Theodore Beza, Second revised edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Hardbound and paperback editions.

Misericordia Dei: The Theology of Johannes von Staupitz in its Late Medieval Setting. Studies in Medieval and Reformation Thought IV. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1968.

In 1959 Steinmetz married Virginia Ruth Verploegh, an English teacher from Chicago whom he met at Wheaton. Virginia earned her MA in English at Temple University and her Ph.D. at Duke University. She taught for several years at Meredith College in Raleigh, North Carolina, before she was appointed as Duke’s first director of graduate student career services. The couple have two children: Claire Elise and Matthew Eliot.

Born in Columbus, Ohio, Steinmetz received his BA in English from Wheaton College in Illinois (1958) and his BD from Drew University (1961). In 1961 he was ordained an elder in the Methodist Church. He moved to Harvard University, where he took a Th.D. (1967) under the direction of the prominent Dutch Reformation historian Heiko Oberman. Before coming to Duke University, where he spent most of his academic career, he taught for five years (1966-1971) at Lancaster Theological Seminary. At the Duke Divinity School, he served as the Amos Ragan Kearns Distinguished Professor of the History of Christianity and was elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2006. He also served as a Visiting Professor at Harvard (1977), Notre Dame (1993, 1997, 2005, 2008), and Emory (2010) universities.

David Curtis Steinmetz (June 12, 1936 – November 26, 2015) was an American historian of late medieval and early modern Christianity.