Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics - The Revised Edition

We are happy to announce the publication of the revised edtion of Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics. The newly revised and digitized edition is the result of a close co-operation between Princeton Theological Seminary and T&T Clark Publishers. The Church Dogmatics is arguably the greatest theological work of the twentieth century. This exciting development will make it possible for the first time to query and search the nearly 8,000 pages of the Church Dogmatics and will result in the publication of a new 31 volume paperback edition by T&T Clark in 2008.

"Students, scholars, and pastors will welcome the arrival of a digital version of the Church Dogmatics," says Clifford Anderson, curator of special collections and member of the advisory committee for the Center for Barth Studies at Princeton Seminary. "It has been our longtime goal to bring Karl Barth's masterpiece into the digital age."

The Swiss-German theologian Karl Barth (1886-1968) was the most original and significant Reformed theologian of the twentieth century. He was one of the central figures in the Confessing Church in Germany, which opposed the Nazi Regime. Barth began the Church Dogmatics in 1932 and continued working on its thirteen volumes until the end  of his life.

Barth's writings continue to guide and instruct the preaching and teaching of pastors and academics worldwide. Princeton Seminary produced the digitized text of the Church Dogmatics with the assistance of a generous grant from the Lilly Endowment, Inc. Care was taken to ensure that the digital text allow scholars to perform searches not only on individual words and phrases, but also on biblical texts and citations. English translations of Barth's Greek and Latin phrases, left untranslated in the old print edition, have now been incorporated into the text and are presented alongside the original, relieving students of the need to read the text with dictionaries at hand.

After completing the digitizing of the full work, Princeton Theological Seminary will continue to maintain and update the electronic text of the classic translation edited by Geoffrey Bromiley of Fuller Theological Seminary and the late Thomas F. Torrance of Edinburgh University. “T&T Clark retain copyright of the classic text produced under the editorial supervision of my father Thomas F. Torrance and Geoffrey Bromiley” said Iain Torrance, president of Princeton Theological Seminary, “but translation projects of this magnitude evolve, and Princeton Seminary has now established copyright of the electronic form of the translation, which it regards as a ‘living text’ that will be revised and corrected by new generations of Barth scholars.”

The new version of the Church Dogmatics will be made available in three ways:

1. A fully searchable CD-ROM version from Logos Bible Software, available from April 2008.

2. As part of the Digital Karl Barth Library in German and English from Alexander Street Press.

3. A new paperback print edition in 31 volumes, presenting the text in a new layout, incorporating the translations of Greek and Latin texts in a student-friendly format, available from December 2008 through T&T Clark at an introductory price of $750/£449 (also available as ebook).

Comments

[Barthian]

To publish a work of this magnitude and significance in paperback rather than hardback is an insult to the memory of Barth.

[Jordan]

Regarding #3, are these different than the ones listed on Amazon (U.S.)?

[Tom]

Hi Barthian,

the classic edition will still be available in hardback.

The new edition coming out later this year is of particular interest to students who do not have a working knowledge of the ancient languages. Our main aim is to keep the price low for them.

[Tom]

Hi Jordan,

the stuff still being on Amazon is not the same edition. This goes back to an earlier announcement of the "new edition" at a time when it was quite unclear which revisions had been made by PTS. We have over and over again asked Amazon to remove this from their website - with no success, unfortunately.

[Jordan]

Ah, ok. Thanks for that clarification. I had pre-ordered I/1 and I/2 when the price was low. Do you have any idea how much individual volumes will be?

[Tom]

Hi Jordan,

the individual volumes won't be available for some time, I am afraid. The price will be around $34.

[Troy]

This is exciting news. I do hope that the covers, as listed on the T&T Clark Website, will be incorporated into the paperback edition. The previous paperback edition had awful,fluorescent colors (particularly the pink!) - an awful sight on a bookshelf. The new covers (again indicated on the website as hardbacks) are much more subtle and classic looking.

So here's a request that the covers on the paperback edition look like the picture shown at the beginning of this post! Please.

[Graham]

Yes, I second Troy's comment. Classic look, please please please!

[Tom]

Hi all,

yes, the new covers will come in a more pleasant design in pastel colours. Thanks for your feedback!

Best
Tom

[Brian]

A paperback edition, far from being an insult to Barth, will honour him, by making his work more widely available.