A giant among 20th
c. NT scholars. The son of a German Lutheran pastor, Bultmann studied at Tübingen
& Berlin before becoming a student of two eminent gospel scholars at
Marburg:
-
Johannes Weiss, who
focused modern attention on the importance of eschatology; &
-
Adolf
Jülicher, who revolutionized the interpretation of Jesus' parables.
Both of these
influences left an indelible mark on Bultmann's own research on the gospels.
In 1921 he returned to Marburg as professor of NT, a position he held for the
next 30 years, where he proceeded to produce a long string of ground-breaking
books:
1921 - The History of the
Synoptic Tradition (which
is still the basic sourcebook on form
criticism);
1925 - The Idea of
Revelation in the NT (an
analysis of biblical theology, whose thesis that "revelation
is an act of God, an event not a supernatural communication of
knowledge" launched
the neo-Orthodox theological concept of word-event);
1926 - Jesus & the Word (an
essay in historical theology, characterizing the focus of Jesus' message as
a prophetic call to decision);
1941 - The Gospel of John: A
Commentary (pioneering
application of source criticism to the composition of the 4th gospel, in
which he distinguished a Jewish "signs source" from gnostic
discourses);
1941 - NT & Mythology:
The Problem of Demythologizing the NT Message (a
programmatic lecture calling NT interpreters to replace ancient cosmology
with the existential philosophy of Bultmann's colleague, Martin Heidegger);
1948-53 - Theology of the NT
(his monumental 2 volume
history of the first century of Christian ideas from Jesus to Justin
Martyr).
The impact of each
of these works on biblical interpretation was evident for several decades
after their publication. Each provoked long scholarly debates between
Bultmann's disciples & critics.
Bultmann himself
was that rare creative thinker who is always two steps ahead of his followers.
Before others could digest his last book, he had moved on to other projects.
He attracted a long line of top students, not only from the European continent
but from England & the US, insuring his permanent impact on NT studies
around the globe. But he was the type of teacher who encouraged innovative
research by his students to correct his own theses. Thus, in 1954 (just three
years after Bultmann retired) his disciple, Ernst Käsemann reopened the quest
of the historical Jesus that Bultmann's form critical research had
halted three decades earlier. Yet, to the
end Bultmann himself maintained his conviction that the gospels were not
history but theology in story form:
There is no
historical-biographical interest in the Gospels, and that is why they have
nothing to say about Jesus' human personality, his appearance and character,
his origin, education and development....
...they do not tell of a much
admired human personality, but of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Lord of
the Church, and do so because they have grown out of Christian worship and
remain tied to it. [The
History of the Synoptic Tradition, (ET Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1963),
pp. 372-73].
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