PR-5

A fascinating, easy to read little book (provided you care about what he's writing about). Bultmann's starting point is the fairly undeniable fact that Jesus, and early followers of Jesus, expected the world to end within their lifetimes. It didn't. What do you do about that? If you're a theologian like Bultmann, you'll accept that "the course of history has refuted mythology," but argue that there's something important underlying the mythology.

It's in his understanding of mythology that Bultmann starts to get into trouble, because he doesn't distinguish between hermeneutics (the idea that all interpretations have to begin from a series of assumptions or biases), and existentialism, the idea that Man is Confronted By His Existence as a Question and so on: from a later perspective, he can't see that there's a difference between early Heidegger and later Gadamer.

This matters because he wants to understand 'mythology' as, roughly, the historically bounded starting point for the understanding of God. Particularly for biblical texts, this reveals itself whenever writers try to give a physical form to transcendent ideas--God smote Billy with a giant oak and so on. Nobody believes that these things happened. So Bultmann's demythologizing approach to the bible makes sense. Most people don't believe that the world is about to end; to that degree, we cannot be Christians. But perhaps if you get rid of the historically untenable bits of biblical texts, you can find something worthwhile in Christianity nonetheless. The attractiveness of this view is fairly obvious, and I suspect that most religious people must make some use of it, if only to say that slaying Amelakites was okay for Ancient Hebrews, but not so much for us.

The problem here is that Bultmann insists that 'our' standpoint for interpreting religion *must be* modern, specifically, that it must be Heideggerian. This leads to much maundering about Existence and Being and Questions that might be useful for understanding how we approach hammers, but doesn't really match up with people's actual problems, viz., war, exploitation, bigotry and so on.

Luckily you can demythologize Bultmann himself: yes, readers must 'interpret' the bible. Yes, they must do this from a particular perspective. Yes, that perspective shouldn't be intellectually irresponsible. But none of that means we have to be existentialists* worried about how people keep seeking security, as if that were somehow a greater evil than those who keep trying to undermine peace.

Also, watching him try to explain how the doctrine of justification is completely different from seeking security is really funny.

But if, like me, you're interested in the bible, but not a fundamentalist, this little book will give you some ideas for explaining your interest to your more rabid atheist friends.

*: Ridiculously, Bultmannn combines his general existentialism with a Kantian understanding of the moral law. Consider my gob smacked. ( )

HG-5

A series of lectures delivered at Yale, Vanderbilt and a number of other American divinity schools in the early 1950's and an outstanding introduction to Bultmann's theology. In a very short book, he covers de-mythologizing of the New Testament, reinterpreting mythological eschatology, integrating the Christian message and the modern, i.e. scientific, world view, and correlating biblical interpretation with existentialist philosophy. When the reader finishes with the last chapter, it would be a good idea to start right back at the beginning and re-read immediately, because, while the early parts of the book are perfectly comprehensible the first time around, they are much more meaningful when read in light of the entire book. Kind of like the Bible itself, I suppose. ( )

To pretend that I can begin to adequately summarise what Bultmann says in this book would be foolish. Bultmann expresses his faith very differently that I do. I would need to immerse myself much more into his writings (and criticism of them) to begin to grasp him. Bultmann's prose is dense and often elusive. However, this little book outlines his related approaches to Biblical interpretation and theology.

His approach to Biblical interpretation begins by asking the question, "Can New Testament Christianity make any sense to “modern man” (educated people formed in the scientific world view of the late nineteenth to mid-twentieth century)?

Bultmann answers this question by proposing that the biblical world view, which he calls “mythological” (ie anything that smacks of miracle or narrative), needs to be stripped away. He does not propose to simply ignore the “mythological elements” of the New Testament (the Old rarely intrudes into his considerations). He wants the whole New Testament to confront us, and deals with the mythological by "demythologising." This is done by looking behind the “myth” to see the deeper meaning. Exactly how are we to extract this meaning?

He answers this question by turning to existentialism ,a philosophy that he thinks especially speaks to modern man, and that can also faithfully capture the essence of the New Testament message. God meets us as we decide for our futures in Jesus Christ mediated through the proclaimed Word.

What can I, from a basically evangelical perspective, affirm in Bultmann's agenda, as revealed in this book and clarified by some wider reading (see below).Firstly, I am impressed by Bultmann's desire to engage all of scripture, and not simply ignore the bits that don't chime with his world view. This is the whole point of demythologising - it is a tool to engage with all of scripture.

We do have to be careful in the terms in which we speak to our society. Simply repeating the insights of the Reformation or even of the mid-twentieth century may not speak adequately to our society, which asks different questions.

There is a sense in which we must move beyond the world view of the biblical world. Few of us think that heaven is literally up, or hell literally down, or that slavery is something which should be tolerated if not approved.

Even in existentialism, there is a challenge which moves us beyond a Christian form of fatalism. The future is the realm which is, for us, open, and our ability to engage with the future or be shackled to the past is vital.

However, it is clear that I am not going to buy into demythologisation. It assumes that the scientific rationalist world view needs no challenge. I can see no methodological objection to affirming the supranatural in Christian proclamation. Our society itself has rejected the more extreme forms of scienfitic rationalism (despite the desperate squeaks of Dawkins and his ilk), and is perhaps looking for the grand narrative that Christianity could (with some imagination from the Church) provide.

As for existentialism - is it not elitist? Is it not the philosophy of those who can consider their futures and the problems of "authenticity" without having to worry about many of the more mundane aspects of life. There is something in existentialism that seems to deny divine Providence and Grace that guides and guards us, despite Bultmann's modifications. If we do not not stare into the absurdity of the universe, then why do we need the existentialist answer?

Biblical studies and theology have moved on from Bultmann, but his influence remains in both areas, and in the beliefs of many church leaders educated under Bultmann or his students.

Some more sampling of Bultmann can be found on these articles available through JSTOR:

R. Bultmann, "Humanism and Christianity" Journal of Religion 32(2) Apr. 1952, pp. 77–86.

E. Dinkler, "Existentialist Interpretation of the New Testament" Journal of Religion 32(2) Apr. 1952, pp. 87-96.

R. Bultmann, "On the Problem of Demythologizing" Journal of Religion 42(2) Apr. 1962, pp. 96–102. ( )