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History and Bultmann's Structural Inconsistency
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 October 2008
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Bultmann has been charged by critics of both right and left with building a basic inconsistency into his position, in that he lays down a programme for intepreting the New Testament in terms free of mythological elements, but continues to talk about God's decisive act in Christ, the eschatological event. My enquiry here is occasioned by the appearance of an exposition of Bultmann's doctrine of history in which the claim is made that he is not inconsistent at all; on the contrary, the author Norman Young argues that Bultmann's understanding of Jesus Christ as eschatological event is consistent with and indeed shaped by his complex view of history. In this paper I want to examine that view of history to see whether it, at any rate, can be rendered consistent and to assess the adequacy of his account of historiography.
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References
page 63 note 1 Young, N., History and Existential Theology: The Role of History in the Thought of Rudolf Bultmann, Epworth, 1969.Google Scholar
page 65 note 1 The Christian Doctrine of History, p. 47.
page 66 note 1 I say ‘falsify or invalidate’ so as not to characterise the kerygma too narrowly as simply the pro-claiming of truth. One might reasonably insist, as Bultmann does, that the kerygma is also an accosting, demanding and promising word. But while a demand or a promise is not a statement and so cannot be falsified, it can be rendered baseless and empty, in that its presuppositions can be shown to be false. It is in this sense that in this paper I use the word ‘invalidate’.
page 66 note 2 Theology of the New Testament, vol. I, p. 26.
page 66 note 3 ibid., my emphasis.
page 67 note 1 Cf. Theology of the New Testament, vol. II, p. 123.
page 67 note 2 Op. cit., p. 131.
page 69 note 1 Jesus Christ and Mythology, pp. 78–9.
page 69 note 2 See, e.g. Kerygma and Myth, II, pp. 186 ff.
page 69 note 3 Christ Without Myth, p. 112.
page 70 note 1 Op. cit., p. 116, quoting Bultmann, : Essays, p. 228.Google Scholar
page 72 note 1 Young's charge—op. cit., p. 120.
page 73 note 1 In reply to Macquarrie, in The Theology of Rudolf Bultmann, ed. Kegley, C., p. 274.Google Scholar
page 73 note 2 Kerygma and Myth, I, p. 37.
page 73 note 3 Cf. his lecture translated in Braaten and Harrisville, eds.: The Historical Jesus and the Kerygmatic Christ.
page 74 note 1 This is how Young understands it, cf p. 125.
page 74 note 2 ‘Lessing's Problem and Kierkegaard's Answer’, SJT, 1966, pp. 35–54Google Scholar, reprinted in Essays on Kierkegaard, ed. Gill, J., 1968.Google Scholar
page 75 note 1 Kerygma and Myth, I, p. 10.
page 75 note 2 ibid., p. 197.
page 75 note 3 ibid., I, p. 82.
page 78 note 1 One of the few theologians who has shown some awareness of these matters is Harvey, Van: The Historian and the Believer, Macmillan, 1966.Google Scholar
page 78 note 2 The term comes from Grice, H. P.: ‘Utterer's Meaning and Intentions’, Phil. Rev., 1969, pp. 147–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar