• Embed Doc
  • Copy Link
  • Readcast
  • Collections
  • CommentGo Back
Download
 
Kerygma and Myth by Rudolf Bultmann and Five Critics
Rudolf Bultmann is one of the great scholars in the field of New Testament study. He was born in Germany in 1884,studied at Tubingen, Berlin and Marburg. During the time of the Nazi domination, he took active part in the strongopposition which the churches built up. After World War II he spent much time lecturing in the United States. Thecritics are Ernst Lohmeyer, Julius Schniewind, Helmut Thielicke, and Austin Farrer. This book, with the exceptionof the Austin Farrer article, was first published in German by Herbert Reich of Hamburg-Volksdorf, Germany; theEnglish edition, including the Austin Farrer article, was first published in 1953 by S.P.C.K., London, and is herereprinted by arrangement. The English translation has been revised for the Torchbook edition. This material wasprepared for Religion Online by Ted and Winnie Brock.
 
Forward by H. W. Bartsch
 No single work which has appeared in the field of New Testament scholarship during the waryears has evoked such a lively discussion as Bultmann’s original manifesto,
 New Testament and  Mythology
(p.1 ff. in the present volume). Unless we are prepared to rule out any advance inNew Testament scholarship in Germany since the outbreak of the war, like Ethelbert Stauffer inthe preface to the third edition of his
Theologie des Neuen Testaments
(Stuttgart, 1947, p. v) wemust surely recognize such an advance in this debate. Since the relevant material has hithertobeen almost inaccessible, or available only to a very limited circle in cyclostyled form, it hasseemed all the more urgent to place the discussion as a whole before the theological public. Itwill at once be seen that there is no question of our being able to present a series of assuredresults. There is that much truth in Stauffer’s contention so far as this particular debate isconcerned. Yet even Sir Edwyn Hoskyns in his review of New Testament studies in the yearsbetween the wars (
The Riddle of the New Testament 
, 1931, German trans. 1938) was equallyunable to present a series of "assured results". Even for him the only result was an open question.All the same Hoskyns’s work itself appeared to many to be a particularly important result in NewTestament scholarship. The New Testament is the Word of God spoken through the words of men, and since the proclamation of the act of God as the incarnate word confronts us in thisparticular form, it can never be spoken of in direct, straightforward language, and therefore therecannot be in the strictest sense any "assured results". Yet it would not necessarily be wrong tosee in the debate on "demythologizing" both a real "result", a positive contribution made to NewTestament studies by German theologians during the second World War, and also a factor whichis bound to have a profound effect on the study of the New Testament in the future.This problem of the interpretation of the mythological elements in the New Testament is not initself a new one. It was raised as soon as the world view which lay behind the New Testamentbegan to change. The most recent attempt to grapple with the problem was that of liberaltheology, so called. We may leave out of account the "supernaturalistic" answer, which sought toretain the New Testament view of the world as it stood. The liberal answer consisted in theelimination of all mythology from the New Testament. In course of time, however, this particular
 
answer was shown to be untenable, so the problem presented itself anew and in a far moreinexorable form than ever before. For now it was realized that what was needed was notelimination but interpretation. The recognition of the kerygmatic character of the gospels, and of the fact that the kerygma was not confined to the historical narratives of the gospels, made theright interpretation of the mythology of the New Testament more urgent than it had ever beenbefore. So the relation between kerygma and myth came to be the crucial problem in theinterpretation of the New Testament writings. It is the merit of Bultmann that in trying to solvethis problem by demythologizing the New Testament he has called our attention to the problemin all its inexorability. It should be noted, however, that this problem has been the driving forcebehind the study of the New Testament for many years. It has been constantly recurring eversince Martin Kahler’s equally novel manifesto
 , Der sogennante historische Jesus und der biblische Christus
(new impression, Leipzig, 1928). Indeed, it may be traced back as far asWilliam Wrede in the identical form in which Bultmann has raised it. In our own time we meet itwhen we compare Bultmann’s own commentary on the Fourth Gospel in the Meyer series (1941)with Ernst Pery’s examination of the sources of the Johannine theology (Lund, 1939). We meet itagain in all the recent commentaries on the synoptic gospels, and also in Martin Dibelius’s
 Jesus
 (1939). The prominence of this subject in both the earlier and the more recent work on the NewTestament suggests that it is the fundamental problem of all New Testament exposition. It facesboth the theologian in the lecture room and the parish priest in the preparation of his sermons.All that the present volume seeks to do is to indicate the lines on which the debate has beencarried on by both sides. No attempt is made to take sides in the controversy, except on oneparticular point -- viz., in the essays which have been selected for inclusion. Space was not theonly determining factor. There has been no lack of critics who have denied the problemaltogether. It has been contended that "there is no need to demythologize the New Testament,because it does not contain any myth’’ (H. Sasse,
Fluch vorm Dogma,
Luthertum, 1942, p.161ff.) What Bultmann and his school are trying to remove, according to Sasse, is not myth butdogma ("dedogmatizing, not demythologizing"). It would be agreed on all sides that no theologyspeaking for the church could have a hand in that. By the omission of essays which take Sasse’sline we are
ipso facto
adopting a positive attitude to the debate. We believe that there is a realissue at stake.Similarly, the actual choice of essays is intended to suggest the lines on which an answer to thequestion and a solution of the problem are to be sought. Most of the contributions we haveselected come from those who are engaged in New Testament exegesis. But it must not thereforebe concluded that this question is of no interest to systematic theology. Indeed, the systematictheologian must be interested in it if he is to take account of modern philosophy. So must thestudent of comparative religion when he compares modern religious movements with those of ancient times. That is why we include contributions from these fields as well. But as this is amatter of the interpretation of the New Testament documents, the solution must come from theexegesis of the New Testament. We must hearken to the testimony of the New Testament itself.That is why the discussion between Bultmann and Schniewind occupies the centre of the stage,for the criticisms of New Testament scholars are obviously the most important. In this problemwe are concerned with the right hearing of the New Testament message, of the kerygma of JesusChrist the Son of God. This right hearing is the decisive presupposition for every interpretation.
 
This therefore must be the hidden centre of the discussion, and it is with this that all the othercontributions are also concerned.If that be the direction and aim of this volume, we cannot do more than offer an introduction tothe debate. That debate is carried on in every exegesis of a New Testament document, for everyexegesis involves taking up a definite position with regard to this problem. The debate is nottherefore limited to essays written specifically on the subject. In order, however, to recognize theproblem even where it is only latent, we must know what it really is, and that is what Bultmann’sessay and the discussion it evoked enable us to do. Such is the service which the present volumewould hope to perform.H.W. BartschSAHMS,13
September 
1948.
Kerygma and Myth by Rudolf Bultmann and Five CriticsTranslator’s Preface by Reginald H. Fuller
 As Ian Henderson has pointed out in his
 Myth in the New Testament 
(S.C.M. Press, 1952), thetranslation of some of the words in Bultmann’s essay presents certain difficulties, difficultieswhich also occur in the subsequent discussion. As Henderson says, "In some important points,Bultmann and the existentialists mint their verbal coinage and use words in a sense which is notnecessarily contained in other German writing." While Heidegger’s
Sein und Zeit 
has not yetbeen translated, there is a valuable exposition of its thought and a discussion of its terminologyin the prefatory essay to a collection of essays by Martin Heidegger published under the title of 
 Existence and Being
. This prefatory essay is by Dr. Werner Brock, and the reader is referred to itfor an elucidation of some of the terms mentioned below, as well as to Henderson’s workmentioned above.As yet, no one has ventured to translate
 Dasein
or
Vorhanden
, but in order not to disfigure theEnglish translation by the frequent use of German words, I have rendered
 Dasein
as "humanlife", "human Being", or even "Being" where its human character is made clear by the context.
Vorhanden
, which Heidegger uses of the peculiar mode of being characteristic of inanimateobjects, as contrasted with responsible human
 Dasein
, I have translated by "tangible", as inBultmann the antithesis is not so much between
Vorhandensein
and
 Dasein
as between thetangible realities of the visible world and eternal realities, very much like the Pauline contrast of 
kata sarka
and
kata pneuma
. I have followed Brock in rendering
Geworfenheit 
by "thrownness".The distinction between
existentiell
and
existential
, the first meaning that which belongs toexistence as such, the second that which belongs to the particular philosophical system calledexistentialism, is expressed by the use of "existential" for the former, and "existentialist" for thelatter. The distinction Bultmann makes between
geschichtlich
and
historisch
I have endeavoredto observe by the use of "historic" for the former and "historical" or, sometimes, "past-historical"for the latter. By
hysterics
Bultmann means that which can be established by the historian’s
of 00

Leave a Comment

You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...
You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...