A Lutheran Plague Murdering to Die in the Eighteenth Century

Suicide murders - i.e., killings in order to be executed - were alarmingly frequent in eighteenth-century Lutheran Europe. The book traces the murderers motives – an investigation that leads to the Pietist care for death convicts, into central elements of Lutheran soteriology and to the idea of capital punishment as being divinely ordained. - At dræbe nogen alene for at blive henrettet!. Sådanne mord var alarmerende hyppige i 1700-tallets lutherske Europa. Bogen eftersporer mordernes motiver - en undersøgelse der fører til den pietistiske omsorg for dødsdømte, til centrale dele af den lutherske frelseforståelse og til forestillingen om, at dødsstraffene var direkte beordrede af Gud.