Abraham Friesen

Abraham Friesen was born in Winnipeg, Canada, on December 20, 1933. He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Manitoba, Canada, in 1958 and 1962 respectively. In between he spent 1957 and 58 at the University of Göttingen on a fellowship. From 1960 to 63, he taught high school in the city of Winnipeg and then enrolled in the Ph.D. program in Renaissance & Reformation History at Stanford University, studying under the renowned scholar of Christian Humanism and the Reformation, Lewis W. Spitz. He wrote his doctoral dissertation on the Marist Interpretation of the Reformation as a fellow of the Institute of European History in Mainz, Germany, graduating from Stanford in 1967. That summer he was appointed Assistant Professor at University of California Santa Barbara, then worked through the ranks to Full Professor VI (International Distinction), retiring in 2004 at the rank of Professor IX. Through his career to the present, he has published eight major studies, as well as publishing over 50 essays, translations and 15 endowed lectureships given in English, some in German.

Author's Books

Caught between Christ and Christendom

Already in his 1503 Enchiridion – some five years before his work on the New Testament – the great Christian humanist, Desiderius Erasmus, observed: “We are living in a world that has grown alien to the world of Christ in life and doctrine.” In the Paraklesis, the introduction to the first, ...

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