Rudolf Bultmann

Rudolf Bultmann

Rudolf Karl Bultmann (born August 20, 1884 in Wiefelstede , † July 30, 1976 in Marburg ) was a German Protestant theologian and professor of the New Testament . He became known for his program of demythologizing the New Testament proclamation. His views were taken up by systematic theology and philosophy .

Life

Bultmann was a son of the Protestant pastor Arthur Kennedy Bultmann and his wife Helene Bultmann. While the father turned to liberal theology , his mother maintained a pietistic attitude throughout her life . From 1895 to 1903 Bultmann attended the humanistic grammar school in Oldenburg and during this time was a member of the student association Camera obscura Oldenburgensis . After graduating from high school, he first studied Protestant theology and philosophy in Tübingen , where he followed Karl Müller's lecture on church history with particular interest . In Tübingen , Bultmann also became a member of the Igel academic association . After three semesters, he moved to Berlin in 1904 , where he studied with Adolf von Harnack and Hermann Gunkel , among others . Already in the summer of 1905 Bultmann moved to Marburg , where he increasingly concentrated on his later specialty, the New Testament . Influential teachers of this time were Adolf Jülicher , Johannes Weiß and Wilhelm Herrmann .

After taking the first theological exam in 1907, Bultmann received his doctorate in Marburg in 1910 with a thesis on the style of Pauline preaching . Two years later, he completed his habilitation with a study on the exegesis of Theodor von Mopsuestia , also in Marburg. The title of his inaugural lecture was: What does the source of the sayings reveal about the early church? Bultmann initially taught as a private lecturer . In 1916 he was offered a position in Breslau , and in the following year he married Helene Feldmann. In 1920 Bultmann followed a call to Giessen , but returned to Marburg as the successor to Wilhelm Heitmüller in 1921. There he dealt intensively with the philosophy of Martin Heidegger , who held an extraordinary professorship in Marburg from 1923 to 1928.

In the time of National Socialism , Bultmann joined the Confessing Church and the Pastors' Emergency Association . In sermons he pointed to contradictions between National Socialist ideology and Christian faith, but did not offer any open resistance and therefore remained in office until his retirement in 1951. In the autumn of 1944, until the end of the war, Bultmann took in the future professor of theology, Uta Ranke-Heinemann , a daughter of Hilda Heinemann , who had passed her theological state examination with him in 1926, and of the future Federal President Gustav Heinemann .

Bultmann's important lecture on the New Testament and Mythology (1941) took place during the Second World War . The demythologizing debate that began with this lecture was controversial after the war and led to an episcopal declaration at the Flensburg Synod of the United Evangelical Lutheran Church in Germany in 1952, which was directed against Bultmann's approach to demythologizing the New Testament. However, it was not a question of a teaching condemnation, and a few years before Bultmann's death, the regional bishop Eduard Lohse expressed the regret of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Hanover for the declaration made twenty years earlier.

The grave of Helene and Rudolf Bultmann is in the main cemetery in Marburg.

family

Rudolf Bultmann and his wife Helene had three daughters: the librarian Antje Bultmann Lemke (1918–2017), the flautist Gesine Diesselhorst, b. Bultmann (1920–2017), married to the lawyer Malte Diesselhorst , and the cellist Heilke Bultmann (1924–1973). The cellist Jan Diesselhorst (1954–2009) was his grandson.

Theological work

Criticism of form in the New Testament

In 1921 Bultmann published his history of the synoptic tradition , which is still considered the standard work on the exegesis of the New Testament. In it he provides a thorough historical analysis of the synoptic Gospels , in which he tries to identify individual sources that have found their way into the Gospels. Similar to Martin Dibelius , he takes the view that the oldest written sources that are reconstructed in this way also emerged from a pre-literary tradition. They should therefore not be regarded as objective historical reports, but are already shaped by the faith of the early community . For a correct understanding it is necessary to consider their “ seat in the life ” of the early church. Bultmann was of the opinion that Paul (and John ) were not interested in the man Jesus or in his earthly life, but only in the believed Christ, which he primarily justified with 2 Cor 5:16  LUT : “even if we knew Christ have after the flesh, we no longer know [him] [in this way] ”. Bultmann's view is considered outdated in historical Jesus research .

Transition from liberal to dialectical theology

In his 1924 essay, Liberal Theology and the Recent Theological Movement , Bultmann turned away from liberal theology . As a merit of liberal theology, he recognizes that it contributed to the understanding of historical contexts and raised its students to criticize through its radical claim to truth. Bultmann continues not to oppose the historical method as a branch of research within theology, but points out that it has received an inappropriate position in liberal theology: its historical knowledge is unsuitable as a basis for Christian faith. Bultmann agrees with representatives of dialectical theology such as Karl Barth and Friedrich Gogarten that man cannot recognize God on his own - not even through theological studies. Rather, God can only reveal himself to man through his grace in revelation .

In 1926, Bultmann presented a constructive alternative to liberal theology in the book Jesus : It is expressly not about examining Jesus as a historical figure, but about grasping the claim of his preaching . According to Bultmann, the Christian faith is not directed to Jesus as a person, but to the kerygma embodied by him . Bultmann is thus in open contrast to contemporary theologians such as Emanuel Hirsch and Wilhelm Herrmann .

In the essay Church and Doctrine in the New Testament (1929), Bultmann unfolds his understanding of Christian preaching more precisely: He does not take it as theoretical instruction or as acceptance of incomprehensible dogmas , but sees in it an address by people that gives them an existential self-understanding enable. The human situation is characterized by the fact that he cannot dispose of his life on his own, and ultimately cannot create security. But man may live in the trust that God will meet him in love , forgive his sins and justify his existence in the theological sense . However, this attitude cannot be decided once and for all, but rather it has to prove itself anew in specific life situations. This position became known as the Existential Interpretation of the New Testament.

Demythologizing the New Testament

From the 1940s onwards, Bultmann's theological work focused on the question of how his existential interpretation of the Bible could be made understandable to a broad audience and how it could become a basis for faith. To this end, he developed a program to demythologize the New Testament proclamation, which he presented in 1941 in his work New Testament and Mythology . In it he sets the thesis that the New Testament was written from a mythological worldview that has since been replaced by a scientific worldview. In order not to let an outdated world of thought become a prerequisite for faith, it is the task of theology to work out the core of Christian preaching that is independent of the mythological worldview:

“ You cannot use electric lights and radios, use modern medical and clinical resources in the event of illness and at the same time believe in the world of spirits and wonders of the New Testament. And whoever thinks he can do it for himself must make it clear to himself that if he declares this to be the attitude of the Christian faith, in order to make Christian preaching in the present incomprehensible and impossible. "

- Rudolf Bultmann : New Testament and Mythology. 1941, 18

As the first step in demythologizing, Bultmann unfolds the Christian understanding of being. Based on New Testament terms, he differentiates between “being outside of faith” and “being in faith”. Being outside of faith encompasses the visible and available material world with its transience, with sin, flesh and worries. Being in faith, on the other hand, is characterized by a life of the invisible and unavailable, the surrender of self-created security in favor of a belief in God's grace. From this follows a de-worldization and turning away from himself, which leads him to new freedom.

Bultmann sees the understanding of being developed in this way also correctly captured in modern philosophy, for example in Wilhelm Dilthey and Martin Heidegger . However, the philosophy is based on the fact that it is sufficient to point people to their nature in order to enable them to live in harmony with their nature. Theology, on the other hand, still regards an act of God as necessary to unite man with his nature. In addition, philosophy did not arrive at its correct understanding of human existence completely independently, but directly and indirectly absorbed sources such as the New Testament, Martin Luther and Søren Kierkegaard .

Bultmann, for its part, allows philosophy to provide a pre-understanding of being and a conceptuality that made theological reflection possible in the first place. The statements and conclusions of theology, however, were not based on philosophy, but on divine proclamation and, in Christianity, especially on the event on the cross . Belief in the forgiveness of sins and redemption through the love of God is more than wishful thinking only because of the Easter event . The resurrection of Jesus Christ must therefore be more than mythological speech. Since historical-critical research does not make the empty grave and the bodily resurrection of Jesus appear historically secure, the emergence of the Easter faith among the disciples should rather be viewed as the historical core. The historian regards this as a visionary experience of unexplained origin, while the believing Christian is a revelation from God that Jesus' crucifixion is to be understood as a salvation event. Christian faith consists in viewing this proclamation as a legitimate word of God and understanding one's life from this point of view.

Bultmann examines two further aspects of Christian mythology, the pre-existence of Christ and the virgin birth of Jesus. Both points are not about clarifying Jesus' historical origins, but about clarifying his significance for faith. Finally, Bultmann points out that his demythologization cannot be considered complete if one understands not only the world of spirits and wonders of the New Testament, but also the talk of God's work as a myth.

“In no way does he want to eliminate the myth, as the term 'demythologization' might indicate and as has often been misunderstood; the myth must rather be interpreted, i.e. understood, the biblical myth must therefore be understood in terms of the beliefs intended in it. "

- Walter Schmithals

Effect: The Bultmann School

Bultmann urged his students to examine his approach, correct it and vary it wherever necessary. Important students and successors of Bultmann are: Ernst Käsemann , Ernst Fuchs , Günther Bornkamm , Herbert Braun , Hans Conzelmann , Willi Marxsen , Gerhard Ebeling , Walter Schmithals , Heinrich Schlier , Uta Ranke-Heinemann , Eta Linnemann , Manfred Mezger , Günter Klein and Helmut Koester .

Because of Bultmann's authority, German theology has long considered it impossible to make statements about the historical Jesus. It was not until the former Bultmann student Ernst Käsemann and later also other New Testament scholars took the view that the gap between the historical Jesus and the first Christians was much narrower than assumed by Bultmann. In the opinion of many, Bultmann also approached liberal rationalism and skepticism too closely . All of the Bultmann students, however, stuck to the fact that a "belief" on the basis of historical facts does not have to affect the existence of a person at all, that is to say, in the strict sense, is not yet a true belief.

In interaction with non-denominational and Catholic biblical studies ( École biblique ), many Bultmann students came to the conclusion that some of the disciples and eyewitnesses of Jesus (or at least their traditions in a reasonably reliable form) were reflected in the New Testament. New Testament scholars now developed criteria for searching for reliable traditions and information about the historical Jesus. The so-called “New Question about the Historical Jesus”, however, sticks to Bultmann's view that a Christian faith cannot be based on historical facts, but solely on existential contact. For many Protestant and Catholic theologians are convinced today that most of the reports in the Gospels cannot be regarded as reliable "testimony".

Karl Barth wanted to develop the Christian doctrine of faith resolutely as a “theologian”, that is, from God and his “word” sent into the world. He accused Bultmann of starting with anthropology, that is, of drawing up the doctrine of the faith in terms of people. Bultmann wanted to take human “understanding” and “pre-understanding” seriously and, on the path of early church history, investigate how this “pre-understanding” shaped Christian statements in the religious world of that time. Barth considered it a downright blasphemous undertaking, which smelled so much of “God's adaptation to man” that, from 1933, he consistently broke away from all “anthropologists”. The events of the “Third Reich” initially seemed to prove him right. Today, however, the Barthsche Weg is sometimes perceived as one-sided. In any case, many of Barth's concerns were taken up and processed by the Bultmann School.

Bultmann's concern was to convey the message of the New Testament to people with a scientific worldview.

Literary work

In addition to his theological writings, Bultmann's extensive estate, which is kept under the signature Mn 2 in the Tübingen university library, also includes poems and fairy tales. His first printed publication is a poem under the title Inselkirchhof in the Oldenburger Nachrichten für Stadt und Land on July 11, 1903, which begins with the following line: “Silently lit by the moon / Resting the serious space / It floats over it like peace / How a blissful dream. ”The estate was acquired in 2001 by the Protestant theologian Harry Waßmann et al. processed.

In 1916 and 1917, Bultmann wrote four fairy tales with some autobiographical features for his future wife Helene Feldmann, which he enclosed in letters to her.

Bronze bust of Michael Mohns, 2002, on the Theaterwall in Oldenburg

Honors post mortem

In Oldenburg, a bronze bust in the park on Theaterwall reminds of his origins in this city. A street in the Bloherfelde district is named after Rudolf Bultmann. There is also a Rudolf-Bultmann-Straße in Marburg.

The parish hall of the Evangelical Lutheran parish in Bultmann's birthplace Wiefelstede has also been named after him since 2011.

Well-known quotes

• "That is why he" [meaning modern man] "cannot understand the doctrine of vicarious satisfaction through the death of Christ. How can my guilt be atoned for by the death of someone innocent (if one can even speak of such a person)? What primitive concepts of guilt and justice underlie such an idea? What primitive concept of God? If the view of the sin-eradicating death of Christ is to be understood from the concept of sacrifice: what a primitive mythology that a divine being incarnate through his blood atones for the sins of men! "(New Testament and Mythology, 1941, 20)
• “The real meaning of the myth is not to give an objective view of the world; rather, it expresses how man understands himself in his world; the myth does not want to be interpreted cosmologically, but anthropologically - better: existentially. "(New Testament and Mythology, 1941, p. 22)
• “ There cannot be exegesis without preconditions. ... An indispensable prerequisite, however, is the historical method in questioning the texts. Exegesis, as an interpretation of historical texts, is a piece of historical science. "(Is exegesis without preconditions possible ?, 1957, p. 410)
• “The historical method includes the presupposition that history is a unity in the sense of a closed context in which the individual events are linked by the sequence of cause and effect. ... This unity means that the context of the historical event cannot be broken by the intervention of supernatural, otherworldly powers, so that there is no 'miracle' in this sense. ... While the Old Testament story, for example, speaks of God's active intervention in history, historical science cannot establish God's action, but only perceives belief in God and his actions. As a historical science, it cannot, of course, claim that such belief is an illusion and that there is no action of God in history. But she herself cannot perceive this as a science and count on it; it can only leave everyone up to whether he wants to see an act of God in a historical event that understands itself from its internal historical causes. ”(Is exegesis without preconditions possible ?, 1957, p. 411f.)

Works (selection)

• The history of the synoptic tradition . FRLANT 29. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1921. (2nd revised edition 1931 digitized version , 10th edition 1995). (Founded the history of form together with KL Schmidt and M. Dibelius .)
• What's the point of talking about God? (1925), in: ders., Faith and Understanding. Collected Essays. Volume 1, Tübingen 1933, 26-37. (Also in: New Testament and Christian Existence, 2002 [see below], 1–12) (One cannot talk “about” God because God is the “reality that determines everything.” One can only talk “of” God, namely existentially , i.e. including one's own existence.).
• The problem of a theological exegesis of the New Testament , in: Zwischen den Zeiten 3, 1925, (pp. 334–357).
• Jesus . Berlin 1926. (3rd edition, Mohr : Tübingen 1951; 4th edition Munich 1970).
• Revelation and salvation happening . Goettingen 1941.
• The Gospel of John . KEK 2. Göttingen 1941. (10th edition 1978).
• The three letters of John . KEK 14. Göttingen 1967.
• The second letter to the Corinthians . KEK special tape. Goettingen 1976.
• New Testament and Mythology. The problem of demythologizing the New Testament proclamation (1941), in: H.-W. Bartsch (ed.): Kerygma and Mythos, Volume 1. 1948. 4th edition. Reich, Hamburg, 1960, 15–48. (programmatic essay on demythologizing).
• On the problem of demythologizing , Kerygma and Mythos II, 1952, 177–208.
• The early Christianity within the framework of the ancient religions . Zurich 1949.
• New Testament Theology (1948–1953). UTB 630. 7th throughout Ed. v. Otto Merk. Mohr (Siebeck), Tübingen 1977 (standard work of Protestant theology over several decades).
• Is Unconditional Exegesis Possible? . Theological Journal 13 (1957), 409-417. (also in: New Testament and Christian Existence [see below], 2002, 258–266).
• The relationship between the early Christian message of Christ and the historical Jesus , SHAW.PH 1960/3 (197/5), 5–27.
• History and eschatology . Tübingen 1958. (2nd edition 1964).
• Belief and Understanding (abbreviated: P&L). 4 vol. UTB 1760–1763. (all volumes 1993 in 9th / 6th / 4th / 5th ed.) (collection of articles).
• Karl Barth - Rudolf Bultmann, Correspondence 1911–1966 , ed. v. Bernd Jaspert, 2nd, rev. u. exp. Ed., Zurich 1994.
• New Testament and Christian Existence. Theological essays . Selected, a. and ed. v. Andreas Lindemann . UTB 2316. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2002. ISBN 9783825223168 Google Books .
• Waking and dreaming. Fairy tale . (Ed. By Werner Zager ). Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-88981-171-X .
• Theological Encyclopedia , edited by Eberhard Jüngel a. Klaus W. Müller 1984, X ISBN 978-3-16-144736-5 .
• Correspondence with Götz Harbsmeier and Ernst Wolf 1933–1976 , ed. v. Werner Zager, Tübingen 2017.

literature

• Konrad Hammann: Rudolf Bultmann. A biography. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2009, ISBN 978-3-16-148526-8 .
• Werner Raupp :  Bultmann, Rudolf (Karl). In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 21, Bautz, Nordhausen 2003, ISBN 3-88309-110-3 , Sp. 174-233. (with compact introduction and detailed bibliography)
• Walter Schmithals : Art. Bultmann, Rudolf. In: Theologische Realenzyklopädie 7 (1981), 387-396.
• Walter Schmithals: The theology of Rudolf Bultmann. 2nd edition Tübingen 1967.
• Günther Bornkamm : The theology of Rudolf Bultmann in the recent discussion. Theologische Rundschau 29 (1963), 33-141.
• Bernd Jaspert (Ed.): Rudolf Bultmanns work and effect. Darmstadt 1984
• Bernd Jaspert: Dead ends in a dispute with Rudolf Bultmann. Hermeneutical Problems of Bultmann Reception in Theology and Church. St. Ottilien 1985.
• Martin Evang: Rudolf Bultmann in his early days. Tübingen 1988 (BHTh 74).
• Ernst Baasland: Theology and Method. A historiographical analysis of Rudolf Bultmann's early writings. Brockhaus, Wuppertal 1992.
• Bernd Jaspert: Appropriate exegesis. The minutes from Rudolf Bultmann's New Testament seminars 1921–1951. Marburg 1996.
• Lothar Gassmann: Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Karl Barth, Rudolf Bultmann, Paul Tillich. The most influential Protestant theologians of modern times and their teachings put to the test. Fromm-Verlag 2011, ISBN 978-3841601643 .
• Wolfhart Pannenberg : Problem history of the more recent Protestant theology in Germany. From Schleiermacher to Barth and Tillich . UTB 1979. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1997. ISBN 3-8252-1979-8 (pp. 205–232 on Bultmann)
• Ulrich HJ Körtner (Ed.): Belief and Understanding. Perspectives of Hermeneutic Theology. Neukirchen-Vluyn 2000. ISBN 3-7887-1788-2 .
• Ulrich HJ Körtner (ed.): Jesus in the 21st century. Bultmann's Jesus book and today's research on Jesus. Neukirchener Verl., Neukirchen-Vluyn 2002. ISBN 3-7887-1898-6 .
• Ulrich HJ Körtner: Rudolf Bultmann . In: Michael Klöcker / Udo Tworuschka (Hrsg.): Handbuch der Religionen. Churches and other religious communities in Germany, Landsberg / Munich 1997ff. (I-14.9.11), 37th supplementary delivery 2013, pp. 1–22.
• Werner Zager: Liberal Exegesis of the New Testament. David Friedrich Strauss - William Wrede - Albert Schweitzer - Rudolf Bultmann. Neukirchener Verl., Neukirchen-Vluyn 2004. ISBN 3-7887-2040-9 .
• Hermann Dembowski : Barth - Bultmann - Bonhoeffer. An introduction to her life's work and its significance for contemporary theology. 2nd edition CMZ, Rheinbach-Merzbach 2004. ISBN 3-87062-064-1 .
• Karsten Jung: Homiletic Hermeneutics. Rudolf Bultmann's contribution to a happy Christianity , Spenner: Waltrop 2004
• Heinrich Fries , Bultmann-Barth and Catholic theology ( Memento of February 20, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) ; translated by Leonard Swidler; (= Duquesne Studies, Theological Series 8); o. O. 1967 (English, reliability unclear)
• Matthias Dreher: Rudolf Bultmann as a critic in his reviews and research reports. Commentary evaluation. Münster, Lit, 2005 (Contributions to Understanding the Bible; 11), ISBN 3-8258-8545-3 .
• Friederike Nüssel : Rudolf Bultmann. Demythologization and existential interpretation of the New Testament kerygma. In: Peter Neuner and Gunther Wenz (eds.): Theologians of the 20th century . Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 2002. pp. 70–89.
• Eberhard Martin Pausch: Truth between disclosure and responsibility: The reception and transformation of Martin Heidegger's conception of truth in Rudolf Bultmann's theology. (TBT 64) Berlin / New York 1995.
• André Malet: Myth et logos. La pensée de Rudolf Bultmann, Genève, Labor et Fides, 1971.

Web links

Wikiquote: Rudolf Bultmann  - Quotes

• Literature by and about Rudolf Bultmann in the Index Theologicus
• Literature by and about Rudolf Bultmann in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about Rudolf Bultmann  in the German Digital Library
• Rudolf Bultmann Society for Hermeneutic Theology eV (with bibliography)
• Rudolf Bultmann in the culture portal Northwest

Remarks

1. ↑ Uta Ranke-Heinemann: The BDM cellar in my father's house , in: Alfred Neven DuMont (ed.): Born 1926/27, memories of the years under the swastika. Cologne 2007, pp. 95-106.
2. ↑ Jan Diesselhorst (1954–2009), cellist .
3. ↑ Otto Betz : Essays on Biblical Theology , Vol. 2, WUNT 52, Tübingen 1990: "The" kata sarka "(" after the flesh ") belongs to the predicate (" to know "), not to the object (" Christ ") . "
4. ↑ Martin Hengel : Jesus witnesses outside the Gospels , in: Testimony and Interpretation: Early Christology in Its Judeo-Hellenistic Milieu , London / New York 2004, p. 146: “Even R. Bultmann ... admits that the adverbial meaning ' is more likely ', but then blurs this clear meaning by a nonsensical inversion. Even G. Theissen / A. Merz (Der historical Jesus, Göttingen 2nd ed. 1997, p. 100) want to see a devaluation of the recourse to the historical Jesus in 2 Cor 5:16: This serious misinterpretation obviously cannot be eradicated. "
5. ↑ Walter Schmithals: Belief and Understanding. Rudolf Bultmann and the modern world. (PDF; 36 kB) Evangelical Lutheran Church in Oldenburg, September 7, 2002, accessed on August 2, 2012 (address on the occasion of the installation of a bust of Rudolf Bultmann in Oldenburg). 
6. ↑ http://gutenberg-biographics.ub.uni-mainz.de/haben/register/eintrag/manfred-mezger.html
7. ^ Harry Waßmann, Jakob Matthias Osthof and Anna-Elisabeth Bruckhaus: Rudolf Bultmann (1884-1976): estate directory , estate directory of the University Library Tübingen 2; Wiesbaden Harrassowitz 2001.
8. ↑ Rudolf Bultmann 1884-1976. Oldenburg has a new Bultmann monument in bronze on the Theaterwall. Ev.-Luth. Church in Oldenburg, 2011, accessed on August 2, 2012 . 
9. ↑ Nordwest-Zeitung: Religion WIEFELSTEDE: Rudolf Bultmann lends the parish hall his name. November 8, 2011, accessed June 25, 2019 .