Liturgy, Hymnody, and Pulpit Quarterly Book Review: FW: Why the Concordia Triglotta is Still a Priceless Jewel: Do You Want a Copy of It?

Friday, October 29, 2010

FW: Why the Concordia Triglotta is Still a Priceless Jewel: Do You Want a Copy of It?

Post on the blog below if you'd like to see this treasure return…

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Posted on: Friday, October 29, 2010 10:03 AM
Author: Paul T. McCain
Subject: Why the Concordia Triglotta is Still a Priceless Jewel: Do You Want a Copy of It?

The Concordia Triglotta. Do you even know what it is? It was a book published by The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod many moons ago, and here I'm quoting from the title page: "As a Memorial of the Quadricentenary Jubilee of the Reformation anno Domini 1917 by resolution of the Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio and Other States." Due to wartime paper shortages and so forth, it was not actually printed until 1921. For many years Concordia Publishing House kept it in print, but eventually transferred it over to the Wisconsin Synod's publishing house, which kept it in print until the late 1990s. I picked up a copy from the last printing in around May 2006.

The reason that the Concordia Triglotta remains such a priceless jewel is because it is the only place you can obtain the text of the official, authorized edition of the German Book of Concord, published in 1580, and the Latin edition, published in 1584, along with a fairly literal, to the point of being literalistic, translation of either the German or Latin texts. What happened is that while the Triglotta remained in print, the texts of the two official editions of the Book of Concord were easily accessible to anyone. Now, however, since the Triglotta has gone out of print, and is only available digitally, these texts are not as easily accessible, unless of course you happen to own a first edition 1580 Concordia or 1584 Latin.

Why is this important? Because modern translations of the Book of Concord are not, in fact, based on the official texts of the Book of Concord, but on scholarly reconstructions of what the "best form" of those texts are thought to be, not what they are as they were published in 1580 and 1584. Is this some doctrinal crisis? No, but since confessional Lutherans are pledged to the texts of the German and Latin Book of Concord, most specifically, of course, the German 1580 text, it is good to have those texts available.

So, here is my question to you, dear reader, would you be interested in buying a copy of the Concordia Triglotta is we bring it back into print? We are investigating this right now and aiming at trying to bring it back into print at a reasonable price point, but it is not going to be cheap. Obviously, we can not print thousands of copies and expect to sell those. So, we will probably have to print copies in the hundreds of copies, rather than thousands, which mean the price point will be somewhere in the $60 or $70 range. It will be a casebound book, with an attractive cover design.

So, drop me a note and let me know if you are interested in buying a copy of the Concordia Triglotta. We will not be including the eye-straining copy of the Historical Introductions in the Triglotta, since those now have been retypeset in a nice readable edition, which is available here.

So, let me know. Is you in, or is you out? Want a copy of the Triglotta?