Martin Luther was a man of great thought and constantly went against the feelings and opinions of other people of his time. Martin Luther was born on November 10, 1483, in the Saxon city of Eisleben, Germany. Martin was born to mother Margrethe, who many of his enemies considered a whore and a toilet attendant, yet Martin remembered her later in life as someone hard working and very skilled and willing to punish him if he did something wrong. Martin Luther grew up middle class and was not born into great wealth like many other great scholars of his time such as Girolamo Savonarola, whose family was wealthy before his birth in Luther's time. Martin Luther's father's name was Han's Luder, who later became Luther, who was a miner and a smelter in which neither made him the least bit rich. Han and Luther had an on-again, off-again relationship, but I'll get to that topic in a paragraph not too far away. Martin grew up in a Christian family and was baptized soon after his birth, a momentous process that can happen. At a young age Martin began school and this began his steps towards becoming a great debater, writer and preacher. According to Martin Marty, Luther's beginning as a great orator and writer began after he learned rhetoric and this accompanied him for decades to come. At first Martin's father Hans saw great potential in Luther and wanted him to earn a lot of money and told him that he should go down the path of becoming a lawyer. Martin would have been quite good as a lawyer if he had taken the opportunity, but I feel the story would be tremendously different without him as a religious scholar. In his twenties, Luther began to think deeply about... middle of paper... he's not just a perfect man. Just like any real person, Martin failed, got back up, and failed again, but he never stopped trying. Martin never went against his faith, even though he considered whether what he believed was realistic, he never went against it and gave up. I think Martin Marty tied the life of Martin Luther as he would have wanted. I think when I have time I'm going to really dig deep and go into this book from start to finish and see if there's anything that I missed, because after I finished the book the only problem I had was that I was a little confused about bits and pieces and felt I forgot some details that would have been helpful for this review. Overall this book was great and I will definitely delve into it more later when I have the time to do so. Martin Luther: A Life (Penguin Lives) Paperback – August 26, 2008 by Martin E. Marty