This blog refers to the "original edition" (hardly original printings!) of Barth's Church Dogmatics in English, authorized translation by G. T. Thomson (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1936, etc.). These are the "big black volumes" familiar from collections and libraries.
The later second edition published by T.&T. Clark under the "Continuum" imprint, translated by G. W. Bromiley, edited by G. W. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance, has significantly differing page numbers. While this edition has many praise-worthy attributes and occasionally clearer wording (obviously Bromiley & Torrance referred to Thomson's translation more than once), it is debatable whether the standard edition most often cited by scholars in now the original Thomson translation or the later, second edition.
In February, 2009 T. & T. Clark International will publish a new edition of Church Dogmatics in 31 volumes, and will translate for the first time all the Greek and Latin passages in the excursus which now present more of a puzzle to students, who more commonly now lack fluency in the theological languages Barth and earlier generations regarded as basic tools. The scholars (mostly at Princeton Theological Seminary) will provide numerous helps, and this new edition will publish the original alongside the English translation --hence the 31 volumes!
I anticipate this new edition eagerly, but I am not waiting to undertake further reading until it is available. When and if the advantages of the new 2009 edition are apparent, I intend to return to previous posts in this blog and revise my citations. Until then, however, this web log refers exclusively to the original set of "black books" and their page numbers.
