Ibid., 16.
238. Ibid., 17.
239. Ibid., 19.
240. Ibid., 19–20.
241. Ibid., 20.
242. Ibid., 22.
243. Ibid., 24.
244. Ibid., 25–26.
245. Ibid., 26.
246. Barth, “Biblical Questions, Insights, and Vistas,” 51–96.
247. Thurneysen, Karl Barth ‘Theologie und Sozialismus,’ 18.
248. Marquardt, “Erster Bericht über Karl Barths ‘Sozialistiche Reden,’” 474.
249. Ibid. “It became clear to him that the worker must be a conscious, not a sleeping person, a fighter and not a coward. . . . Hence he had to become a Social Democrat. I say: he must. . . . In him there came to light and breakthrough precisely this, which also moves the great masses unconsciously and spinelessly in their innermost hearts: the realization of the deprivation of the people in their dependence upon capital, and the insight of the sole help, which must consist in solidarity, in the willing and unselfish and brave community of the dependent, and finally the hope and will: Things must change, if only the human beings would come to themselves.”
250. Smart, Revolutionary Theology, 45.
251. Thurneysen’s letter to Barth (January 13, 1919) in B-Th I, 309.
252. Later, in his writing on “Socialism and Christendom” (1923), Thurneysen called for the renewal and repentance of Christianity in the face of the challenge of the proletarian brother. Socialism, argues Thurneysen, is not only the cry for a new world and the longing and hope thereof. It is, when seen in its historical development, necessarily a comprehensive countermovement against the ruling powers and tendency that appeared in the culture and economy at that time. Socialism became the single critique and enemy of mammonism and militarism in the second half of nineteenth century by taking seriously these two forces. Thurneysen, “Sozialismus und Christentum,” 242.
253. Smart, Revolutionary Theology, 45–46.
254. Barth, “Strange New World within the Bible,” 49.
255. Ibid., 49–50.
256. Marquardt, Theologie und Sozialismus, 108.
257. Busch, Karl Barth: His Life, 97.
258. “Auf das Reich Gottes warten,” 175–90.
259. Mattmüller, Leonhard Ragaz, 2: 222; see n. 23.
260. Schellong, “Barth Lessen,” 12.
261. Busch, Karl Barth: His Life, 104.
262. Thurneysen, “Sozialismus und Christentum,” 241, 243.
263. Ibid., 244.
264. Gollwitzer, “Kingdom of God and Socialism in the Theology of Karl Barth,” 112.
265. Barth, Theology of Schleiermacher, 264.
two Karl Barth and the First Edition of Romans (1919)
In a letter to Eduard Thurneysen (July 19, 1916), Karl Barth in-formed him of his preoccupation with an exegetical investigation of Romans. With great excitement he found in J. T. Beck a guide who led him in this exegetical work. In addition to Beck, Barth was influenced by Pietist writers such as Johannes Bengel, C. H. Rieger, and August Tholuck. On 9 September 1917, Barth came to the passage in Rom 5:12–21.1
The first draft of the book Romans was completed on June 3, 1918. There immediately followed a period of intensive revision.2 This manuscript was first printed in December 1918 but only later released, in 1919, by the Bern publisher G. A. Boeschlen. During Barth’s work on Romans, the revolution in Russia (February 1917) put an end to czarist rule. Then the shock of the October Revolution in Russia swept Switzerland in November of 1917. There had been a lot of local strikes, demonstrations, and riots among the working class and socialists until they reached a climax in the general strike in Switzerland in November 1918. On 8 June 1917, Barth still served as a delegate to the SPS congress in Bern.
Barth wrote his first edition of Romans as he became caught up in the joy of discovery. The task of his exegesis during this time was to hear anew Paul’s message in terms of seeing through the historical into the spirit of the Scriptures. As a child of his time, Paul spoke to his contemporaries. But what was more important for Barth’s exegesis was to hear from Paul as the prophet and apostle of the kingdom of God who spoke to all people in all ages.3 Barth’s hermeneutical and practical concern in Romans I was to see the eternal spirit of the Bible penetrate the historical-critical method. For Barth the historical-critical method has its place in preparation for understanding the biblical text. However, what was more important for Barth was that an understanding of history be continuous, more accurate, and a more penetrating dialogue between the wisdom of yesterday and the wisdom of tomorrow.
Barth’s stance toward the historical-critical method was directly related to his disillusionment with the outbreak of the war and the bankruptcy of all liberal theologians in the German universities, who did not view the war critically. In the autumn of 1916, Barth was led to the discovery of the Bible, that is, “the new world within the Bible.”4 When theology and worldview, coupled with their hermeneutical filters and interpretation of the Bible, were shaken to the core, the Bible struck him in a completely new manner; for Barth, the discovery of the Bible was “completely dominated by an interest in the concrete situation in which with all of our contemporaries we found ourselves enmeshed.”5 Social issues, therefore, become indispensable for exegesis. The subject matter that concerns us
