Christliche Dogmatik–Companion to Christian Dogmatics (major reference post)

202l3-08-08 added download for full volume 2 in DOCX format; 2023-01-02: Downloads for text files reactivated; 

2021-09-02: Text file downloads have been disabled for a temporary period of time to allow an interested party to republish these books.  Links will be activated again at a later date. [61% of 100% — 2017: December 15- added links below to Archive.org PDF text files (1a, 1b, 2a, 2b, 3a, 3b) generated from original Google Docs; July 15- added link to Baier-Walther Compendium references; April- added Note 5 below, link to series of tables; March - all references to Der Lutherner, Lehre und Wehre, Walther's Pastoraltheologie, and other Walther works are now hyperlinked; — 2016 Dec. 2-3: added links to Abridged version and Internet scans of all 3 vols. (see Note 3 below); Nov 25: all Hebrew added to vol. 1, also page x-ref links to English ed.; — 2015- Dec 17: Vol 1a proofed; Vol 2a polished; Oct. 29: Vol. 3a fully polished; 2015-10-25: polishing Vol. 3a to pg 200+; 2015-10-20:  added links to cross-refs to English editions (see red Note 2 below); 2015-10-19: finished polishing Vol. 1b; 2015-10-10: finished polishing Vol. 2b; 2015-09-29: Vol 1a, polished all pgs; 2015-09-19: Vol. 2 & 3 TOC cross-ref w/ English ed., hyperlinked; added Vol. 3 - Part 1 & 2; Updated downloads Sept. 15, 2015 - Vol. 2, Part 1  & Part 2; see header notes in each download for latest update ]
      As I was recently working with the original textbooks of Prof. Franz Pieper, his Christliche Dogmatik, a great wish came over me to begin the work of presenting the text of the entire series online.  This would be a much greater project than just presenting the scanned images of the books, something I have already done in a previous (and rather popular) blog post. -- Oh, but that would be a much larger undertaking!  Why?  Because...

• There are over 2000 pages of material.
• There are at least 5 languages: German, Latin, English, Greek, and Hebrew.
• There are at least 4 fonts used for these languages.
• There are 5165 footnotes with their smaller superscript font size.
• There are thousands of words emphasized by bolding and wide spacing (which I will underline).

      This work by Pieper is so massive that I would not have dreamed it possible to extract all of the text just a few years ago.  But that has changed with the new tools available and the ubiquity of the Internet.  And the Google Books text available for Volume 2 and Volume 3 has too many errors to be of extended use.
      But more than presenting the full text, I want to provide:

1. Emphasis of words and phrases by Pieper, which is missing in the English edition.
2. Cross references to the English edition, by section and possibly by page #. The Table of Contents (Inhaltsangabe) already will have cross references to each English section [done].
3. Hyperlinks to many, if not all, of Pieper's thousands of references.  This has become possible only in recent years with Google Books and other worldwide libraries making their contents available online. Also, possibly, hyperlinks to translations of some of the Latin phrases.

I suspect this goal may take years of effort, but it is a labor of love -- perhaps by the anniversary of Reformation in 2017? --  It is amazing to me that today's LC-MS, which makes the English edition available to its theology students, rarely quotes from Pieper's massive, spiritually breathtaking, and yes, scholarly work.  Some of their leading teachers even openly scoff at it, like they do his Brief Statement.  Today's LC-MS (and CPH) would rather go off and listen to Robert Kolb, Hermann Sasse, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, maybe even C.S. Lewis.  But it is Franz Pieper (The Second Walther) who is the teacher of Christianity for all... here and now!

      For those that may not be aware of it, the Kindle version of Christian Dogmatics offers not only the English text, but also the Greek and (I assume) Hebrew texts.  Unfortunately these were not reproduced perfectly as, for example, I noticed some missing Greek text in a footnote.

To: Concordia Publishing House.

Why is it that you do not mention that there is a Kindle version (eBook) of Christian Dogmatics on your website?  Why is there no hyperlink?  I have not yet purchased these Kindle versions, but I can see by Amazon's "Look Inside" that you have included at least the Greek text, a significant feature!  This is especially puzzling since you do offer a link on your website to the Kindle version of President Matthew Harrison's At Home in the House of My Fathers which also has Greek (and maybe Hebrew) text... (I know this because I purchased both the Kindle and print editions).

But I will say this to you CPH, it may happen that your sales of Christian Dogmatics are improved by what I am about to offer -- my "companion" series to the greatest Christian dogmatics textbooks ever produced.
      There is one major feature missing in the English translation – in both print and Kindle editions.  It is the emphasis that Pieper adds to thousands of words and phrases.  As I looked over Pieper's Dogmatik, I often wished that I could view how the passages read with the emphasized words.  This shortcoming also occurred with the publishing of the English version of his Brief Statement.  I can certainly understand why this emphasis is missing in the English translation – it was a major undertaking just to get it translated in the first place.  But this online version of the original German text will go a long way in rectifying this shortcoming.

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      So now I present the purpose of this blog post — the gateway to the original "Christian Dogmatics", Franz Pieper's Christliche Dogmatik.  Unfortunately Google Docs can only handle up to 1 million characters, or maybe 400 pages.  So I have had to split each volume into parts 1a and 1b, 2a and 2b, etc.  I have indicated below what pages numbers are contained in each portion.

      This work is only begun and will have its own special "label" that will appear at the top of my "Labels" list on the right -- I am starting out using "$-Christliche Dogmatik (10% done)".  I will update the label as I progress with this endeavor.

Click on any of the hyperlinks immediately below each volume for the text document currently available.  If there is no hyperlink, it will be forthcoming... check back occasionally.

Christliche Dogmatik
Volume 1  —   —   —   —   Volume 2   —   —   —   —  Volume 3
(2023-01-02: Downloads for text files reactivated)
— full Vol. 2 (zipped) —
Vol 1a, Vol 1b    —   —   —   Vol 2a, Vol 2b   —   —   —  Vol 3a, Vol 3b
(1-333, 334-690)   —    —    —    (1-358, 358-672)    —   —   —    (1-296, 297-626)
Archive.org uploads of text PDFs with hyperlinks:
Vol 1a, Vol 1b    —   —   —   Vol 2a, Vol 2b   —   —   —  Vol 3a, Vol 3b

Note 1: "Complete" volumes above are in Microsoft's Word Online -- but are now largely obsolete in 2017. However when these are opened with Google Chrome browser, the "Google Translate" option does not seem to be available. 
Note 2: added 2015-10-20 -- Full cross-reference listings to English edition:    Vol 1  •   Vol 2a  •  Vol 2b  •  Vol 3. 
Note 3: 2016-11-25: Text of Index Vol. 4 >  here  <; 2016-12-03: Abridged version; (Archive) vol. 1, 2, 3, Index; (Ggl Bks) vols. 2,  3. 
Note 4: 2017-03-28: Hyperlinks to Walther's Pastoraltheologie added, cross reference table here; also links to all Lehre und Wehre, table here.
Note 5: 2017-04-02: See >> HERE << all references to Old Missouri: Pastoraltheologie, Lehre und Wehre, Der Lutheraner, Conv. Essays, books/lectures (including Stoeckhardt); Baier-Walther Compendium.
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Are you perhaps wondering what is the point of offering the German text?  Then I invite you to click on any of the above links for Part 1 or Part 2 with Google Chrome, have Google Translate extension enabled, and see "What hath God wrought"! (Numbers 23:23)  My experience has been that it takes only a few seconds to translate over 300 pages each time!... truly amazing! —  May the reader find on every page spiritual food to grow in the knowledge of God and His only Son, Jesus Christ. —

Soli Deo Gloria!
Sola Gratia!