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David C. Steinmetz, Reformation historian, dies at 79

David C. Steinmetz, a leading historian of the Reformation, died November 26 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. He was 79.

Steinmetz was professor emeritus of the history of Christianity at Duke Divinity School, where he taught for nearly four decades be­fore retiring in 2009.

L. Gregory Jones, a Duke theology professor, wrote of Stein­metz in a 2002 Christian Century article that “he has devoted much of his career to interpreting our forebears’ interpretations of scripture. He has discovered a sophisticated, imaginative conversation that is more like contemporary approaches to detective fiction or other novels than what we have come to call exegesis.”