Bultmann Essay Information

Reference List
Berkouwer, G. C. (1975). Studies in Dogmatics: Holy Scripture (J. B. Rogers, Ed.) (254-255). Grand Rapids: W. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co.

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Bultmann, Rudolph, Kerygma and Myth: A Theological Debate. New York: NY, Harper & Row, . 1961, 1-

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Bultmann, Rudolph, On The Problem of Demythologizing. The Journal of Religion, Vol.

No. 2,Apr1962. 96-102

Bultmann, Rudolph & Jaspers, Karl, Myth and Christianity: An inquiry into the possibility of
religion without myth, Noonday Press, 1958. 61

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Bultmann, Rudolf, Theology of the New Testament: Vol 1.1951. SCM Press, London:UK.

Bultmann, Rudolf, The Christian Hope and the Problem of Demythologizing. The Expository _ Times, Volume 65. June 1954.

Fahlbusch, E., & Bromiley, G. W. (1999-2003). Vol. 1: The encyclopedia of Christianity (796). Grand Rapids, MI.; Leiden, Netherlands: Wm. B. Eerdmans; Brill.

Elwell, W. A., & Beitzel, B. J. (1988). Baker encyclopedia of the Bible (613). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House.

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Erickson, Millard. (2001). Introducing Christian doctrine (2nd ed.) (293). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic.

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Henry, C. F. H. (1999). Vol. 1: God, revf!/ation, and authority (60). Wheaton, III.: crossw:
Books.

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 NT = Mythological Construct The cosmology of the New Testament is essentially mythical in character. The world

kis viewed as a three-storied structure, with the earth in the centre, the heaven above,
and the underworld beneath ... Man is not in control of his own life. 1 . This world view is characterized by the presence of three levels-heaven, earth, and the

kunderworld God."1 Pg 1.

so that earth is considered to be the "scene of the supernatural activity of

The three-tier universe, with the Holy Spirit, heaven and angels above and Satan and C1demons and hell below, framing the bodily incarnation and resurrection of the Logos, is a mythological portrayal of an anthropological event, telling us not about God but about ourselves. 28 In Bultmann's words, "The mythical view of the world must be accepted or rejected in its

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entirety" ("New Testament and Mythology," p. 9)27

kexpect our converts to accept not only the Gospel message, but also the mythical
view of the world in which it is set. If not, does the New Testament embody a truth which is quite independent of its mythical setting? If it does, theology must undertake the task of stripping the Kerygma from its mythical framework, of 'demythologizing' it. 3. Man's knowledge and mastery of the world have advanced to such an extent .( through science and technology that it is no longer possible for anyone seriously to hold the New Testament view of the world. 4.

We are therefore bound to ask whether, when we preach the Gospel today we

k It is simply the cosmology of a pre-scientific age.

3.

This mythological method of representation is foreign to modern man, whose thinking is

Hdetermined by science to whatever extent, if any, he himself actively participates in

scientific research and understands its methods. We have learned the meaninglessness of speaking about 'above' and 'below' in the universe. We can n longer honestly accept the thought of Christ coming on the clouds of heaven. --

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... in them some enduring truth has found expression; whether there lies at their roots a viewpoint; indeed a knowledge, of the nature of human existence which may not be the

H possible understanding f human existence - for there are many such, and to only
choose one is always a matter for decision ... Does such an understandingli:e at the basis of these mythological concepts? And how would it be expressed in the concept and speech of modern men? how could a myth-imbued message about God's grace still speak to modern, scientific

E man?18

 the content of the kerygma is continually at stake in the struggle over demythologizing,

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hence also the kerygma's reliability.?

NT

Bultmann challenged the theological world to take up the task of freeing the

message

p from the mythological worldview of the first century. Similar challenges had been issued
by others before; but Bultmann's call, especially in its developed form, was unique in several crucial respects. 15

Studies in Church Dogmatics - Assorted Quotes

"Demythologizing," therefore, means the attempt to understand the myth.
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f reality referred to by mythological statements or texts. This presupposes that myth

indeed speaks of a reality, although in an inadequate way. -

By demythologizing I understand a hermeneutical procedure that inquired about the

... demythologizing seeks to give full weight to myth's real intention to speak of man's

authentic reality.

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Bultmann's main emphasis is that the New Testament symbolically expresses a

Gtranscendent reality that is not mythological, a reality experienced in personal faith. The
biblical myth at this point is not fable but semantically coded truth summoning us to faith in non mythological reality.29

 There is no longer

in the traditional sense of the word. The same applies

to hJlin the sense of a mythical underworld beneath our feet. And if this is so, the

kstory of Christ's descent into hell and of hi0scension

can no longer look for the return of the that the faithful will meet him in the air. 4 .

is done with. We

on the clouds of heaven r hope

Ian Henderson notes that Bultmann additionally objects to some elements (e.g.,
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original sin and qemon possession) because they invalidate human freedom, a tenet deeply cherished by existentialists (Myth in the New Testament, p. 46).34

finds what the NT has to say about the 'Spirit' and the sacraments utterly strange and 6.

The resurrection of Jesus is just as difficult for modern man, if it means an event kwherebya living supernatural power is released which can henceforth be appropriated through the sacraments ... such a notion he finds incomprehensible. 8 . .. He notes that the resurrection of Christ is often used in the New Testament as a miraculous (proof, for example, the stories about the empty grave and the appearances. This tendency can even be noted where Paul "tries to prove" the miracle of the resurrection by adducing a list of eyewitnesses 3 Pg 39 . .. Bultmann calls this (He notes that the resurrection of Christ is often used in the New

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Testament as a miraculous proof, for example, the stories about the empty grave and the appearances. This tendency can even be noted where Paul "tries to prove" the miracle of the resurrection by adducing a list of eyewitnesses) "a fatal argumentation."9 Pg 305.

t The miracles of the NT have ceased to be miraculous - science. 5.

If the truth of the NT proclamation is to be preserved, the only way is to our

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motive in doing must not be to make the NT relevant to

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the modern world at all costs. 1O.

 The real purpose of myth is not to present an objective picture of the world as it is, but to express man's understanding of himself on the world in which he lives. 10 . The purpose of myth is not really cosmological but anthropological, that is, it expresses ( \ something about man 5 Pg 61. Yet it is clear that Bultmann uses the term myth for a prescientific outlook on the cosmos and life as well as for a symbolical or pictorial representation of reality.32 Myth should be interpreted not cosmologically, but anthropologically, or better still, lC existentially. 10 . [Man] describes powers in terms derived from the visible world, with its tangible Icobjects and forces, and from human life, with its feelings, motives, and potentialities. He speaks of other world in terms of this world, and of gods in terms derived from human life. 10 . Mythology is the use of imagery to express the other worldly in terms of this world
I

\cand the divine in terms of human life, the other side in terms of this side.

10 .

The real purpose of myth is to speak of a transcendent power which controls the Kworld and man, but that purpose is impeded and obscured by the terms in which it is expressed. 11. Bultmann defines myth primarily as that form of imagery in which what is not of this

<1 world, namely, the; divine, is represented as though it were of this world and therefore
human ("The New Testament and Mythology," p. 10, n. 2). In this mood he champions not the elimination of myth but its anthropological interpretation in existential categories: he translates the mythical into the non mythical. 30 Hence the importance of the NT mythology lies not in its imagery but in the

Ie understanding of existence which it enshrines. 11.

Previous Attempts
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Demythologizing

The liberal theologians of the last century were working on the wrong lines. They threw away not only the mythology but also the kerygma itself. 12 . ., ... whereas the older liberals used criticism to eliminate the mythology of the NT, out task today is to use criticism to interpret it. Of course it may still be necessary to eliminate mythology here and there. 12. Can the kerygma be interpreted apart from mythology? Can we recover the truth of kerygma for men who do not think in mythological terms without forfeiting its character as kerygma? 15. Only Solution = Existentialist Interpretation

k [Myth]

need[s] to be interpreted existentially. 16.

K Our task is to produce an existentialist interpretation of the dualistic mythology of the NT :::Ilona similar lines. 16. It cannot be proved by logic or demonstrated by an appeal to factual evidence. 16.

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Bultmann in two respects seems to violate his own concept of religious myth. On the one hand he insists on its retention for purposes of translation into existential

q reflecting the philosophical influence of Martin Heidegger. On the other hand, much in
the mood of D. F. Strauss's Life of Jesus, Bultmann critiques as prescientific fable or story universe, incarnation, bodily resurrection, Holy Spirit, angels and demons)31
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(nonmythical, anthropological) categories as its only and permanently valid sense, thus

untruth certain aspects of the biblical account (e.g., its supposed geocentric view, three-

Bultmann is, in fact, triple-minded about myth: (1) although he projects biblical myth as an alternative to literal and valid truth about the invisible transcendent world, (2) he eliminates, because supposedly discredited by modern science, some myths that he considers factually untrue, while at the same time (3) he attaches to the Christ-myth as a: symbol of the existential experience of authentic being a normative validity of literal truth. Bultmann thus violates his primary definition of myth: he rejects as objectively certain elements of supposedly biblical myth because they are contradicted by scientific philosophy and he validates the Christ-myth as existentially true because it is presumably confirmed by contemporary existential philosophy33

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R. W. Sleeper notes, moreover, that Bultmann's own definition of myth cannot avoid being itself mythical by his own criteria 35

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Bultmann, as noted, proposes to eliminate myths as supposedly discredited by science

Gwhile preserving myth as a semantic coding for a normative existential experience. 36Pb GI
Bultmann aims to translate Christian theology into literal truth (existentialism), Tillich

4affirms that literally true statements would destroy religious language. Both Tillich and
Niebuhr reject Bultmann's demythologizing, because they consider existentialism, partly because of Its shallow view of sin, inadequate for expressing the Christian gospel 37
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To translate religious belief into scientific categories would "deprive religion of its (Systematic Theology, 2:152). Theology must be liberated from taking

religious language literally, hence the call is for "deliteralizing" rather than demythologizing. 38

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e The brand oftJeo-Kantianism that was the rage at Marburg during Bultmann's student 'fdays there posited mathematical physics and logic as the pattern for explaining all valid forms of "knowing."19 e Bultmann, fgJlowing the lead of his teacher Wilhelm Herrmann, clung to it as essential for the doctrine of justification by faith over against works.20 eJ:leidegge!Jwanted to spell out our "self-understanding." Taking certain cues from EHeidegger's existential analysis, Bultmann argued the gospel must also concern man's ( self-understanding 23

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e his final, comprehensive definition of myth: myth is the prescientific, objectified Aepository of an authentic self-understanding that can be unlocked byanil-8xistentiaLI hermeneutic. By definition, then, the gospel mythology in the interprete9
NT

was intended to be

e ... demythologizing is a mode of interpretation, which, following M. Heidegger (18891976), Bultmann calls existential interpretation. 10 Bultmann's program was truly a hermeneutical one. It did not aim at the immediate of myth, but at the interpretation of myth prior to its elimination 25

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FromlHeidegger, Bultmann borrows the concept of authentic and inauthentic \ existence. 26 7 't1

Rudolf Bultmann, Jesus Christ and Mythology (New York: Scribner, 1958), pp. 39-40.

e A more fundamental issue is whether Bultmann's methodolog presupposes

. Heidegger's philosophy. The introduction to Bultmann's book on Jesus, which Bultmann

wrote before he "knew anything about Heidegger or his philosophical ideas" (as he
",

stated in a letter to the author dated June 5, 1971), gives of existential interpretation. One suspects that the philosophy influenced some of the passages in it. 12

his mode

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e Much of the attack on Bultmann's theology of demythologizing failed to see its

philosophical basis, especially in Heidegger's philosophy. But precisely in this failure

there comes to light a sense that in Bultmann's distinction between "existential" and "existentiell" interpretation-the former in terms of the underlying view of human existence and the latter in terms of the personal application 13 e Much of the misunderstanding of demythologizing is probably due to the fact that L.-Sultmann did not fully think through this distinction14

 "demythologizing" was essentially a surgical, rather than a hermeneutical, procedure:

geverything unacceptable

man was cut away in hopes

salvaging a residue of religious or ethical principles16

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Unlike the beings of nature, man is not placed in the causal continuum of natural pprocesses must himself take over his being and is for it ... these

decisions are made in accordance with the way he understands his existence or in keeping with what he sees to be the fulfilment of his life.

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context, myth is involved to the extent that what is expressed in it is a certain of human existence.

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I refer to this kind of interpretation of history as 0xistentialist interpretations'. \

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.... existential interpretation is for Bultmann not just a method suggested by myth but the

:. hermeneutical principle by which to understand all texts, including those that are not
mythological. 11 The distance required for a neutral observation of an object is impossible. The apparently objective picture of historical processes is always conditioned by the individuality of the observer, who is himself historical and can never be a spectator who stands outside of historical time This way of looking at reality is fully developed in natural science and in the technology it makes possible '
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Every such existential encounter, of course, takes place in a concrete situation, and it is easy or, so to say, natural for the one encountered by God to refer this situation also to God s action.
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P Authentically vs. inauthentically

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Since, however, such a vantage point is not possible for man, a philosophy that endeavours to understand the meaning of history is likewise impossible -

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The question now is whether existentialist interpretation of history and an objectifying presentation of it are mutually contradictory, or, in other terms, whether the reality seen in the one case stands in contradiction with that seen in the other, so that one must speak of two realms of reality or even of a double truth In inauthentic existence man understands himself in terms of the world that stands at his disposal, whereas in authentic existence he understands himself in terms of the future of which he cannot dispose. -

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.p Therefore, it is quite clear that an existentialist interpretation of history has need of an

objectifying view of the historical past.

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