Classics Professor to Translate Rare Religious Texts from Latin to English

Dr. Kirk Summers
Dr. Kirk Summers, professor of Classics in the Department of Modern Languages and Classics, has been asked to serve as Latin translator for a volume of rare religious texts.

A volume of commentaries on the Bible written in Latin by Protestant reformers in the 16th Century will soon be translated for the first time into English by Dr. Kirk Summers, professor of Classics in the Department of Modern Languages and Classics.  Summers has been asked to serve as Latin translator for a soon to be published volume of the texts that were written by historic authors who are not well-known to modern readers.

“These volumes will make available texts and ideas that were previously inaccessible to most pastors, theologians, and laypeople,” said Summers.

The new series from InterVarsity Press, Reformation Commentary on Scripture, aims to collect together the most theologically and rhetorically significant interpretations by Protestant reformers of the 16th Century on every passage in the Bible. These passages will be translated for the first time from German, French, Dutch, Latin, and other languages. The series is expected to include a total of 28 volumes, three of which are already in print.

Summers is currently contributing to the volume on the book of Acts, with extensive translations of commentaries and homilies by Otto Brunfels (1488-1534), Konrad Pellikan (1478-1556), and Johannes Brenz (1499-1570).

Summers is a graduate of Reformed Theological Seminary (1986) and has an MA in Latin (1988) and a Ph. D. in Classical Philology (1993). He has published on Lucretius, Cicero, Roman religion, medieval Latin, and the Renaissance/Reformation eras.