Karl Barth is known as one of the greatest Christian theologians of modern times. While Barth's writings are permeated by biblical citations and exegesis, there are only a few examples of Barth's interpretation of an entire biblical book. In this anniversary edition of The Epistle to the Philippians, Karl Barth's exposition of the book of Philippians is again made available. Two new introductory essays by Bruce L. McCormack and Francis B. Watson examine the significance of Barth's theological exegesis of Philippians and introduce Barth's approach to biblical interpretation.

This book is novel in its questioning of the adequacy of interpreting Paul from the perspective of the Reformation and in its application of sociological methods to the New Testament. 'In the past few years or so Paul's theology, especially his relationship to Judaism, has become a highly controversial topic in NT studies. In this book Watson launches into that controversy with one of the most important and adventurous contributions to date, which is sure to spark off further controversies in its wake ... that he has managed to produce strikingly novel but not wild or idiosyncratic results is...

The essays in this collection arose out of a conference held at King's College, London in the spring of 1992. While the contributions do not deny the need for historical criticism and its lasting significance, they believe that it is no longer plausible to identify the results of such criticism with the full reality of the biblical texts. Other approaches are equally
legitimate and the new theoretical perspective must be pluralistic.
Factors determining the new situation are an acceptance of what is widely called a 'postmodern' condition, the recognition that the Bible is an 'open text'...