Why Read Rare Books?

In Word and Work: An Intersection, Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, President Emeritus Dr. Dale A. Meyer talks with Dr. Bruce Durazzi, the special collections librarian in the Kristine Kay Hasse Memorial Library at Concordia Seminary. The men talk about the library’s many resources including its rare book collection of 8,000 volumes, one of which is J.S. Bach’s personal Bible. Durazzi tells the story of how the Bach Bible ended up at the Seminary and shares a few details about some historic books, including one on a Martin Luther sermon that printed in Wittenberg, Germany, in the 1500s. Durazzi says the book’s printing, most likely, was overseen by Luther himself. “We are Lutheran leaven because these kinds of scholarship and resources get out into the broader Christian community on behalf of the Gospel,” Meyer says.

You can download the episode in video (mp4) or audio (mp3) format at the Word and Work Scholar page: https://scholar.csl.edu/wordandwork/97/.