Karl Adam (theologian) in the context of "The Epistle to the Romans (Barth book)"

The Epistle to the Romans (German: Der Römerbrief) is a commentary by the Swiss theologian Karl Barth on the New Testament Epistle to the Romans.

In the summer of 1916 Barth decided to write a commentary on Paul's Epistle to the Romans as a way of rethinking his theological inheritance. Barth was a pastor in Safenwil at the time. Protestant Liberal theology had played a significant role in the rise of German nationalism prior to World War I. The first edition of the commentary was published in December 1918 (but with a publication date of 1919). It was the first edition of the work, which earned Barth his invitation to teach at the University of Göttingen and which Karl Adam said fell "like a bombshell on the theologians' playground." In October 1920 Barth decided that he needed to revise the first edition and worked for the next eleven months on rewriting the commentary, finishing around September 1921. The second edition was published in 1922 and translated into English in 1933.