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Thursday, February 14, 2013

Abridged Christian Dogmatics (Mueller) & Christliche Dogmatik

[2020-03-02: added link to Google Books for Pieper's 1924 volume 1 below; 2018-05-08: added link to Wilbert Kreiss French paraphrase; 2018-04-18: added hyperlinks to the available alternate languages in Scaer text Dec. 3, 2016: added Archive.org download links; Sept. 9, 2015: see newer post for "companion" downloads of full text of original Christliche Dogmatik2015-Aug. 30: added text file links vol 1; Aug. 22: added text file link for vol. 4;Aug. 10, : added vol. 4- Index to downloadsSept. 7, 2014 - in red]

A correspondent has presented a PDF file of a 1934 CPH published book Christian Dogmatics: A Handbook of Doctrinal Theology for Pastors, Teachers, and Laymen.  Although this book lists J.T. Mueller as the primary author, it is actually an abridged English translation of Franz Pieper's great Christliche Dogmatik (Christian Dogmatics) 3-volume book series.

My correspondent requested that I provide a download for this on my blog post for which I am happy to do.  Although HathiTrust and Google Books have this book, yet neither provide a full download for the public.

Download link ==>> Christian Dogmatics, CPH 1934, J.T. Mueller (92 MB from Box.com)
[2019-06-27: Archive.org copy ==>> here (since 2014, maybe from this blog or Google Books)
[Note:  CPH offers hardback printed copy ==>>  here ; Amazon ==>> here ;
I notice CPH link has been active starting in 2010]

Prof. David P. Scaer says this in his article "Francis Pieper" in Handbook of Evangelical Theologians (Baker, 1993):
    An abridged English-language version of the Christliche Dogmatik was prepared by John Theodore Mueller, Pieper's successor as professor of theology at Concordia Seminary, and published in 1934. Entitled Christian Dogmatics: A Handbook of Doctri­nal Theology for Pastors, Teachers, and Lay­men, the abridgment has been translated into Spanish, Swedish, French, Finnish, [Chinese, Latvian, Russian, Portuguese, PolishZulu, alternate French by Wilbert Kreiss here from LHF.and, ironically, German - (CSL), the language of the original dogmatics. Omitting some of Pieper's more complex refutations of nine­teenth-century theologians, Mueller's ver­sion has assisted students for whom the theological arguments in the three-volume Christian Dogmatics are too detailed. Muel­ler's abridgment is really Pieper's work, though Pieper is not mentioned on the title page (there is a reference to him in the pref­ace). Students from other denominations are likely to use the abridgment to deter­mine the classical Lutheran position.
So this is a worthy addition to my blog.  Why?  Because it was the first version of Pieper to be in the English language.  It preceded the official full English translation by many years and the name of J.T. Mueller is to be commended in our memory for his work.  I can tell you Mueller's life was miserable to the end... to see his old Missouri dissolving before his very eyes.  How he strived to keep the true teaching alive, but alas, the LC-MS would not.  I can say that I voraciously read all Mueller's articles in Concordia Theological Monthly until he died.

Scaer's phrase "the classical Lutheran position" sounds a bit odd to me.  Isn't the "classical Lutheran position" actually the Christian doctrine?  Or was that too harsh for Scaer to say in this Reformed "Handbook" from Baker Book House?
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But beyond just the abridged English version, I am also going to provide download links to the original German of Pieper's Christliche Dogmatik, all 3 volumes.  I see that Volumes 2 & 3 (Zweiter & Dritter Bands) are available on Google Books now, so this will give an easy source for all the greatest Christian teaching series in our modern world.

Why provide the original German books since very few Americans understand the German language?  It is because there have been some who have appealed to Pieper's original German language to attempt to promote false doctrine, especially by Larry Darby and others.
  1. Download link ==>> Christliche Dogmatik, Volume 1 (New: Google BooksArchive.org); Text file links: Part 1 - pages 1-333: here; Part 2 - pages 334-690: here.
  2. Download link ==>> Christliche Dogmatik, Volume 2 - Google Books (Archive.org here)
  3. Download link ==>> Christliche Dogmatik, Volume 3 (copy 1, copy 2)-Google Books; (Archive.org here)
  4. Download link ==>> Christliche Dogmatik, Vol. 4 - Index (Archive.org); Text file link HERE.
Soli Deo Gloria –  To God Alone Be The Glory!

6 comments:

  1. Hi:

    I stumbled upon your web page trying while trying to find an English pdf of Mueller's Christian Dogmatics. Thanks for the pdf download link!

    I'm sending a link to a fluent German speaking friend of mine, Pr. Horst Gutsche, so he can download Pieper's Christian Dogmatics.

    I need a link to an English translation of Pieper's Christian Dogmatics. Could you provide me with one? Please send it to mac01@mymts.net

    Thanks:

    Yours and His:
    Mike Clarke

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's been several months since I made the request for a link to an English Translation of Pieper, but I'm glad to have a pdf of Mueller, now. Thanks. But please, could you provide a link, for us non-Germans, to download an English translation of Pieper's Christian Dogmatics. I have hard cover editions of both Mueller and Pieper, but it would be great to have a pdf version of Pieper, now that I have one of Mueller.

      Yours and His:
      Mike Clarke

      Delete
    2. Mr. Clarke:
      I'm glad the downloads have been beneficial to you. Perhaps you did not notice my previous comment above – CPH still has the copyright on the English translation of Pieper's Christian Dogmatics. And a Kindle eBook is available on Amazon — though CPH strangely does not show this availability on their website. Unfortunately the Kindle version is not much less cost than the hard cover books.
      I could offer to give you an electronic scanned version with text, but I would rather not... I want CPH to make a million dollars on Pieper's books! Maybe their "professional editors" would then wonder: What's going on? and scratch their heads over it...

      Delete
  2. Pieper's Christian Dogmatics (the English translation of Christliche Dogmatik) is still in copyright by CPH and is being actively sold by them. I suggest that you purchase all 4 volumes (either new or used) as they are the greatest books of Christian (i.e. Lutheran) doctrine the world may ever see. Set aside ALL other theological works for awhile and read what Christianity is.
    backtoluther.blogspot.com/2011/10/franz-pieper-20th-century-luther.html

    ReplyDelete
  3. The PDF is in German -with a Old English Font? -cannot easily transport it to Google Translate. While the link to Google Books is to limited view only (now August 2015) . Any live links instead?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ravrodriguez -
      Actually the German font is "Fraktur" and my downloads (so far) are only the scans of the original books. To be able to translate them requires digitizing the text by OCR. Since Google Books has vols. 2 & 3 available, you can look at their "Plain Text" of these 2 volumes -- it is a good start for the German text but not for the Latin, Greek and Hebrew portions. I am currently investigating the possibilities of getting at least some of the text available for download. Keep checking back -- I hope within a month or so to have the Index (or Eckhardt's "Register") text available for download and searching.

      Delete

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