Book of Concord

The Book of Concord or Concordia (1580) is the celebrated doctrinal accepted of the Lutheran Church, consisting of ten credal abstracts accustomed as accurate in Lutheranism back the 16th century. They are additionally accepted as the symbolical books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church.1

The Book of Concord was appear in German on June 25, 1580 in Dresden, the fiftieth ceremony of the presentation of the Augsburg Confession to Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Augsburg. The accurate Latin copy was appear in 1584 in Leipzig.2

Those who acquire it as their doctrinal accepted admit it to be a affectionate account of the Holy Scriptures. The Holy Scriptures are set alternating in the Book of Concord to be the sole, all-powerful antecedent and barometer of all Christian doctrine.3

Origin and arrangement

The Book of Concord was aggregate by Jakob Andreae and Martin Chemnitz at the bidding of their rulers, who adapted an end to the religious controversies in their territories that arose amid Lutherans afterwards the afterlife of Martin Luther in 1546.4 It was advised to alter German territorial collections of doctrinal statements, accepted as corpora doctrinæ (bodies of doctrine) like the Bulk doctrinæ Philippicum or Misnicum. This aim is reflected by the compilers' not calling it a bulk doctrinæ although it technically is one.5 The account of writings predating the Formula of Concord that would be included in The Book of Concord are listed and declared in the "Rule and Norm" area of the Formula.6

Following the alpha accounting by Andreae and Chemnitz (1578–80)7 the "Three All-comprehensive Creeds" were placed at the alpha in adjustment to appearance the appearance of Lutheran teaching with that of the age-old Christian church.8 These creeds were the Apostles' Creed, Nicene Creed, and Athanasian Creed, which were formulated afore the East-West Schism of 1054, but the Nicene Creed is the western adaptation absolute the filioque.

The added abstracts appear from the ancient years of the Lutheran Reformation (1529–77). They are the Augsburg Confession, the Apology of the Augsburg Confession, both by Philipp Melanchthon, the Small and Large Catechisms of Martin Luther, his Smalcald Articles, Melanchthon's Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope, and the Formula of Concord, which was composed anon afore the publishing of the Book of Concord and advised for the aforementioned purpose: the abatement and affinity of the growing Lutheran movement. The alpha of the Book of Concord was advised to be the alpha of the Formula of Concord as well.9

The Augsburg Confession has atypical importance

as the accepted accord and account of our Christian faith, decidedly adjoin the apocryphal worship, idolatry, and superstition of the papacy and adjoin added sects, and as the attribute of our time, the aboriginal and changeless Augsburg Confession, which was delivered to Emperor Charles V at Augsburg during the abundant Diet in the year 1530 ...10

A contempo book on Lutheranism asserts, "To this day ... the Augsburg Confession ... charcoal the basal analogue of what it agency to be a 'Lutheran.'"11The Apology, the Smalcald Articles, the Treatise, and the Formula of Concord explain, defend, or serve as addenda to The Augsburg Confession.12

edit Contents

Alpha (1579)

The Three All-comprehensive creeds.

The Apostles' Creed

The Nicene Creed

The Athanasian Creed

The Augsburg Confession of 1530

The Apology of the Augsburg Confession (1531)

The Smalcald Articles of Martin Luther (1537)

Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope (1537)

The Small Catechism of Martin Luther (1529)

Luther's Marriage Booklet (1529) and Baptism Booklet (1526) were included as allotment of the Small Catechism in a few of the 1580 editions of the German Book of Concord13

The Large Catechism of Martin Luther (1529)

Epitome of the Formula of Concord (1577)

The Solid or Thorough Declaration of the Formula of Concord (1577).

The Catalog of Testimonies was added as an addendum in best of the 1580 editions.

edit Context in Christendom

The simple Latin appellation of the Book of Concord, Concordia, (Latin for "an accordant together"14) is applicable for the appearance of its contents: Christian statements of acceptance ambience alternating what is believed, taught, and accepted by the confessors "with one affection and voice." This follows St. Paul's directive: "that you all allege the aforementioned thing, and that there be no capacity amid you, but that you be altogether abutting calm in the aforementioned apperception and in the aforementioned judgment." (1 Cor. 1:10)(NKJV). Lutherans accept that the creeds and adventures that aggregate the Book of Concord are not the clandestine writings of their assorted authors:15

Inasmuch, however, as they are in complete acceding with Holy Scripture, and in this account alter from all added accurate symbols i.e., denominational creeds and credal statements, the Lutheran adventures are absolutely all-comprehensive and all-embracing in character. They accommodate the truths believed universally by accurate Christians everywhere, absolutely by all constant Christians, around alike by inconsistent and awry Christians. Christian truth, actuality one and the aforementioned the apple over is none added than that which is begin in the Lutheran confessions.16

Contemporary subscription

To this day the Book of Concord is doctrinally normative amid acceptable and bourgeois Lutheran churches, which crave their pastors and added rostered abbey workers to agreement themselves actually to the Book of Concord.17 They generally analyze themselves as "confessional Lutherans." They accede the Book of Concord the norma normata (Latin, "the normed norm") in affiliation to the Bible, which they accede the norma normans (Latin, "the norming norm"), i.e. the alone antecedent of Christian article (God's accurate word). In this appearance the Book of Concord, on the capacity that it addresses, is what the abbey authoritatively understands God's accurate chat to say. This is additionally alleged a "quia" (because) cable to the Lutheran confessions, i.e. one subscribes because the Book of Concord is a affectionate account of the Scriptures. It implies that the subscriber has advised the Lutheran adventures in the ablaze of the Scriptures in adjustment to access at this position, which in the subscriber's appearance does not crave the abnegation adumbrated in a "quatenus" (insofar as) subscription. One who subscribes the Lutheran adventures quatenus, insofar as they are a affectionate account of the Scriptures, believes that there ability be contradictions of the Scriptures in them. In some cases this is the address of cable of some added Lutheran churches, which attention the Book of Concord as an important attestant and adviser to the actual article of the Lutheran Abbey although not necessarily doctrinally binding. The better Lutheran abbey to subscribe actually to the Book of Concord is the Evangelical Lutheran Abbey of Finland with 4.6 actor members.1819

English translations

English translations of alone abstracts of The Book of Concord, conspicuously The Augsburg Confession, were accessible back the 16th century.20 The aboriginal complete English adaptation of The Book of Concord was the 1851 Henkel copy followed by a added copy in 1854. These volumes included actual introductions.

Henry E. Jacobs and others appear the abutting English adaptation in 1882 with a revised "People's Edition" in 1911. The 1882 copy was accompanied by a accompaniment aggregate that independent actual introductions and English translations of added abstracts allegorical of the history of The Book of Concord.

The third English copy was appear as a ceremony acknowledgment of the 400th ceremony of the Reformation (1917) forth 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.21 A abate copy with aloof the English argument was additionally published.

With the actualization of the 1930 Bekenntnisschriften analytical argument a fresh English adaptation was accounted desirable. This was amorphous but larboard amateurish by John C. Mattes, who died in 1948. Theodore G. Tappert as accepted editor and translator produced the 1959 "Tappert Edition" forth with Jaroslav Pelikan, Robert H. Fisher, and Arthur Carl Piepkorn.22

2000 Augsburg-Fortress Press copy of The Book of Concord

An all-encompassing afterlight of the Tappert Copy 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 advisers from two altered 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 adaptation from the aboriginal Latin argument of The Apology of the Augsburg Confession were fabricated credible by F. Bente's admittance of the alternative readings of his English adaptation of the German argument in aboveboard brackets into the capital anatomy of his adaptation of the aboriginal Latin text. The acumen for these differences partly stemmed from two editions of The Apology appear in 1531: they were the "quarto edition" and the "octavo edition": so alleged because of the address in which they were printed.23 The album copy was appear with the aboriginal advertisement of The Augsburg Confession in April or May of 1531; hence, the name "editio princeps" "first edition". The album copy followed in September, 1531.24 Justus Jonas, who translated the Apology into German, fabricated use of both the album copy and the album edition. The added acumen for the differences amid the German and Latin texts of the Apology was the "looseness" of the Jonas translation, authoritative it added like a digest than a translation.25 The editors and translators of the 2000 Kolb-Wengert copy absitively to use the album copy as the capital antecedent for their adaptation with alternative readings from the album copy set in italics because it was their acceptance that the album copy was the "official text" of The Apology. They allegedly did this afterward the assessment of the German academic Christian Peters, who claimed the album copy was alone a date on the way to a audible text, i.e. the album edition.26 The album copy Latin argument was activated in a clandestine Latin copy of The Book of Concord in 1580,27 but advisers catechism whether or not this album copy argument can be advised the argument accustomed by the Lutheran Church in the 16th century.28 The official 1584 Latin Book of Concord has the album copy argument as its argument of The Apology of the Augsburg Confession.29 Another affair with this copy is the ambience off of "the filioque" of the Nicene Creed in aboveboard brackets.30

The best contempo English adaptation of the Book of Concord was appear in 2005 to admire the 425th ceremony of the advertisement of the Book of Concord, and the 475th ceremony of the presentation of The Augsburg Confession.It is a afterlight of the English argument of the Concordia Triglotta and advantaged Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions—A Reader’s Copy of the Book of Concord and edited by Paul T. McCain, Edward A. Engelbrecht, Robert C. Baker, and Gene E. Veith.31 A added copy followed in 2006. The beginning to the aboriginal copy expresses the ambition with this English adaptation to accommodate an copy for use by those who are alien with the Lutheran Confessions, actuality advised for use not alone in seminary and academy classrooms, but additionally in homes and churches.32 The McCain copy is based carefully on the texts of the Lutheran Confessions independent in either of the two official editions of the Book of Concord, the German copy of 1580 and the Latin copy of 1584. Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions is a different abstraction and reader's copy absolute all-encompassing annotations, and accoutrement and guides advised to aid account and comprehension. The history and bodies associated with the assorted abstracts in the Lutheran Confessions are featured. There are added than 115 atramentous and white and 31 full-color plates, as able-bodied as a timeline, accepted index, added essays accouterment an overview of the textual issues and history of the Lutheran Confessions, and a arbitrary of the attributes and acceptation of the acceptable Lutheran access to accepting and application the Lutheran Confessions.

Available Editions of The Book of Concord

Die Bekenntnisschriften der evangelisch=lutherischen Kirche. Herausgegeben in Gedenkjahr der Augsburgischen Konfession 1930. 12th edition. Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 1998. ISBN 978-3-525-52101-4 (Critical argument of the aboriginal German and Latin Book of Concord)

The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Theodore G. Tappert, translator and editor. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1959. ISBN 0-8006-0825-9. (First English adaptation of The Book of Concord texts as arise in Die Bekenntnisschriften) Called "Tappert" or the "Tappert Edition" for short

The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert, editors. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress Press, 2000. ISBN 0-8006-2740-7. (Second English adaptation of The Book of Concord texts as arise in Die Bekenntnisschriften. The antecedent of its adaptation of The Apology of the Augsburg Confession is not the official 1584 Latin Book of Concord text, which had been the base of the 1959 "Tappert Edition" English adaptation of the Apology the after "octavo edition" argument of 1531 rather than the beforehand "quarto edition" argument of 1531 is utilized; however, the alternative readings of the album copy arise in italics.33

Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions — A Reader's Copy of the Book of Concord. Paul Timothy McCain, accepted editor. additional edition. St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2006. ISBN 0-7586-1343-1. (A avant-garde accent adaptation of the English argument of Concordia Triglotta, St. Louis: CPH, 1921 interspersed with allegorical notes)

Concordia Triglotta: The Symbolical Books of the Ev. Lutheran Church, German-Latin-English. F. Bente, editor. St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1921. (This trilingual adaptation had been reprinted by Northwestern Publishing House until recently)