IN the latest part-volume of the Church Dogmatics published in the autumn of 1955, Karl Barth has given us his second comprehensive survey of the doctrine of reconciliation. For the setting of this treatment within the whole, readers are referred to the synopsis of the first part-volume in a previous issue (Volume 8, Number 2, June 1955), or better still, to the English translation which is now available (cf. especially § 58, 4). Within this whole, the present part-volume deals with the common material under the general title of ‘Jesus Christ, the Servant as Lord’, and therefore from the standpoint of the kingly work of Christ. The volume consists of one long chapter (953 pages) within the Dogmatics, and is divided into five main sections. It is to be noted, incidentally, that in the rendering of Versöhnung in the main title of Volume IV the word ‘reconciliation’ has now been preferred to ‘atonement’, although the latter is often used where it agrees with the context.

This passage must surely be unique in the variety and contrasts of the interpretations proposed by commentators and theologians. Not only are there at least three main lines of exegesis distinguishable, but within and across these general lines scholars disagree radically as to the source of St. Paul's teaching, its relation to 1 Cor. 15, its value as evidence of the Apostle's thought, and even its basic subject matter. Thus while Windisch (Commentary on II Corinthians, in loc), W. L. Knox (St. Paul and the Church of the Gentiles, pp. 128–43) and Rudolf Bultmann (Theology of the Mew Testament, I, pp. 201–2) regard the passage as evidence that St. Paul had modified traditional Jewish eschatology by introducing Hellenistic themes, Walter Grundmann (articles on εκδημεω,ενδημεω in Kittel's T.W.N.T. II, pp. 62–4), W. D. Davies (Paul and Rabbinic Judaism, pp. 308–14) and Schweitzer (The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle, p. 134) maintain that the language can be explained without recourse to direct Hellenistic influence. Whereas Davies (op. cit., pp. 310–11) and Bultmann (op. cit., p. 201) believe that between 1 Cor. 15 and 2 Cor. 5 the Apostle's thought had undergone a significant development, G. B. Stevens (The Pauline Theology, p. 343 note 1), H. A. A. Kennedy (St. Paul's Conception of the Last Things, pp. 264–72), Alfred Plummer (II Corinthians, pp. 160–4), L. S. Thornton (The-Common Life in the Body of Christ, pp. 284–6) and H. L. Goudge (The Second Epistle to the Corinthians, pp. 45–55) deny any such development.