Book of Concord - English Translations

English Translations

English translations of individual documents of The Book of Concord, notably The Augsburg Confession, were available since the 16th century. The first complete English translation of The Book of Concord was the 1851 Henkel edition followed by a second edition in 1854. These volumes included historical introductions.

Henry E. Jacobs and others published the next English version in 1882 with a revised "People's Edition" in 1911. The 1882 edition was accompanied by a companion volume that contained historical introductions and English translations of other documents illustrative of the history of The Book of Concord.

The third English edition was published as a jubilee observance of the 400th anniversary of the Reformation (1917) along with the German and Latin texts as the 1921 Concordia Triglotta: The Symbolical Books of the Ev. Lutheran Church, German-Latin English edited by Friederich Bente. A smaller edition with just the English text was also published.

With the appearance of the 1930 Bekenntnisschriften critical text a new English version was deemed desirable. This was begun but left unfinished by John C. Mattes, who died in 1948. Theodore G. Tappert as general editor and translator produced the 1959 "Tappert Edition" along with Jaroslav Pelikan, Robert H. Fisher, and Arthur Carl Piepkorn.

An extensive revision of the Tappert Edition came out in 2000 translated and edited by Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert. As with the Tappert Edition, the "Kolb-Wengert Edition" was translated by scholars from two different Lutheran denominations (the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America). Besides Drs. Kolb and Wengert the translators were Eric Gritsch, Charles Arand, William Russell, James Schaaf, and Jane Strohl. The differences of the German translation from the original Latin text of The Apology of the Augsburg Confession were made apparent by F. Bente's insertion of the variant readings of his English translation of the German text in square brackets into the main body of his translation of the original Latin text. The reason for these differences partly stemmed from two editions of The Apology published in 1531: they were the "quarto edition" and the "octavo edition": so called because of the manner in which they were printed. The quarto edition was published with the first publication of The Augsburg Confession in April or May 1531; hence, the name "editio princeps" . The octavo edition followed in September, 1531. Justus Jonas, who translated the Apology into German, made use of both the quarto edition and the octavo edition. The other reason for the differences between the German and Latin texts of the Apology was the "looseness" of the Jonas translation, making it more like a paraphrase than a translation. The editors and translators of the 2000 Kolb-Wengert edition decided to use the octavo edition as the main source for their translation with variant readings from the quarto edition set in italics because it was their belief that the octavo edition was the "official text" of The Apology. They apparently did this following the opinion of the German scholar Christian Peters, who claimed the quarto edition was merely a stage on the way to a definite text, i.e. the octavo edition. The octavo edition Latin text was utilized in a private Latin edition of The Book of Concord in 1580, but scholars question whether or not this octavo edition text can be considered the text approved by the Lutheran Church in the 16th century. The official 1584 Latin Book of Concord has the quarto edition text as its text of The Apology of the Augsburg Confession. Another issue with this edition is the setting off of "the filioque" of the Nicene Creed in square brackets.

The most recent English version of the Book of Concord was published in 2005 to commemorate the 425th anniversary of the publication of the Book of Concord, and the 475th anniversary of the presentation of The Augsburg Confession.It is a revision of the English text of the Concordia Triglotta and entitled Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions—A Reader’s Edition of the Book of Concord and edited by Paul T. McCain, Edward A. Engelbrecht, Robert C. Baker, and Gene E. Veith. A second edition followed in 2006. The preface to the first edition expresses the intention with this English version to provide an edition for use by those who are unfamiliar with the Lutheran Confessions, being designed for use not only in seminary and college classrooms, but also in homes and churches. The McCain edition is based strictly on the texts of the Lutheran Confessions contained in either of the two official editions of the Book of Concord, the German edition of 1580 and the Latin edition of 1584. Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions is a unique study and reader's edition containing extensive annotations, and tools and guides intended to aid reading and comprehension. The history and persons associated with the various documents in the Lutheran Confessions are featured. There are more than 115 black and white and 31 full-color plates, as well as a timeline, general index, additional essays providing an overview of the textual issues and history of the Lutheran Confessions, and a summary of the nature and meaning of the traditional Lutheran approach to accepting and using the Lutheran Confessions.