Finding something new to say about Martin Luther is always a challenge, especially for historians who are specialists of neither Luther nor the German Reformation, and even more especially during an anniversary as big as the recent 500th, which was accompanied by yet another flood of new books, conferences, television programs and of course lego action figures. Craig Harline, who until now has written primarily about the Reformation in the Low Countries, will discuss the particular angle that he took on Luther in the book that Oxford University Press asked him to write for the 500th anniversary. The book is meant for general readers, and focuses on the very human Luther during the first five years of his fame rather than on the earth-shaking consequences that followed and that turned him into an icon. Most of all, Harline tries to help readers experience the uncertainty and tenuousness of those early, famous events, when the outcome was still far from certain, in order to experience them as much as possible from the point of view of the main actors, rather than with the now well-known outcome in mind. This story will also provide historical context for the new edition of the Sermon on Indulgences and Grace being presented during the graduate student workshop.