"Witness to the Word is an important exposition in its own right, as well as a clue to Barth's development as a theologian. I was struck, first, by Barth's meticulous attention to exegetical detail, in dialogue with the best available scholarship; and, second, by the foundational character of this exposition for the doctrine of the Word of God he developed later in his Dogmatics."

-JOHN D. GODSEY

Wesley Theological Seminary

K ARL BARTH'S LECTURES on the first chapter of the Gospel of John, delivered at Münster in 1925-26 and at Bonn in 1933, came at an important time in his life, when he was turning his attention more fully to dogmatics. Thus, theological interpretation was his primary concern, especially the relation between revelation and the witness to revelation, which helped to shape his formulation of the role of the written (and spoken) word vis-à-vis the incarnate Word.

The text is divided into three sections-John 1:1-18, 19-34, 35-51, with the largest share of the book devoted to the first section. Each section begins with Barth's own translation, followed by verse-by-verse and phrase-by-phrase commentary on the Greek text. Although Barth's interpretation is decidedly theological, he does take up questions of philology and textual criticism more thoroughly than in his other works.