On the Lack of Context in Luther Quotes
Misquoting Luther actually has a long history in RC polemics, as James Swan has amply documented. In the previous thread on Luther, there was a lot of Sturm und Drang but little if any interaction with the context of Dave Armstrong's Luther citations. I asked him several times to explain if his citations of Luther support his comments about how Luther felt, and he responded by citing completely different sources to support his contentions. Not only that, but one of his readers, Adomnan, cited by him in that thread, stated this:
You, Dave, accurately quote Luther saying A. Swan digs up the texts where Luther said A (or some other text he sees as related), and notes that he also said B, C, D and E, the "context" of A. Swan then claims that because Luther said B, C, D and E, none of which contradict A, it follows that he didn't say, or didn't mean, A.
This is false on the face of it and, in my opinion, deserves no response other than perhaps a curt dismissal.Keep in mind this was quoted approvingly by Dave Armstrong. According to Adoman, only "A" matters. Nothing else is context if Mr. Swan thinks it is related. Indeed it cannot be related because according to Admonan, context can never make "A" mean "Not A". That is a childish and naive view of how language works. We do not understand verbal communication by having a dictionary handy, nor do we ignore rhetorical devices such as irony, exaggeration etc. By ignoring context we only increase the likelihood that we will get something wrong.

