ABSTRACT
The main focus of this chapter will be the interpretation of Boehme by the nineteenth-century Danish theologian Hans Lassen Martensen. In addition to producing what was intentionally a “popular” book on what many regarded as an exceptionally obscure body of writings, 1 Martensen is significant and perhaps even unique amongst Boehme’s post-1800 theological interpreters in the extent to which he interprets and appropriates some of the most speculative elements in Boehme’s thought as being essentially compatible with an ecclesiastically orthodox theology. 2 However, even though he also shows awareness that Boehme is not an entirely unproblematic figure in relation to the mainstream of Christian dogmatic thinking, Martensen’s work exemplifies the perils as well as the attractions of using Boehme as a resource for doctrinal theology. I shall conclude this chapter by using two other theological appropriations of Boehme, by William Law and Paul Tillich, to bring into focus how Martensen ultimately succumbs to these perils.
