Rudolph Bultmann

by Rudolf Karl Bultmann

Book Overview

Bultmann's pioneering study of the New Testament initiated a new era in biblical studies in the Twentieth Century. Together with Karl Barth, Bultmann broke with liberal theology, but his often misunderstood program of demythologization took him in a radically different direction from Barth. In many respects Bultmann set the agenda for biblical theology in the decades following World War II. This volume concentrates on the key texts and ideas in Bultmann's...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0800634020
• ISBN13: 9780800634025
• Release Date: September 1991
• Publisher: Fortress Press
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

How to read the Bible...

This volume on the works of Rudolf Bultmann is part of a series by Fortress Press entitled 'the Making of Modern Theology: Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Texts'. Each of the volumes in the series focuses upon one particular theologian of note. These volumes are of use to students, seminarians, ministers and other readers interested in the development of theological ideas in the modern and postmodern world. Each volume is a reader of key texts from the theologian highlighted - the text entries are annotated a bit by the editors, and the editor of each volume provides an introduction setting the general stage for context and understanding.Editor Roger A. Johnson describes Bultmann as being somewhat of a partner with Karl Barth in opposing the established nineteenth-century liberal theology, yet with dramatically different results. Bultmann is a theologian who is often categorised under the heading of 'biblical studies' rather than theology; there is a blurring of the disciplines with regard to Bultmann. His project of demythologising the New Testament is often misunderstood, but goes in significantly different ways than his contemporary Barth.Bultmann's faith led him to discount the prevailing liberal theological notion that Christianity and scripture were essentially human-constructed codes of moral behaviour tinged with emotive aspects. He also had the sense that God was not something or someone rooted in a particular time only, but had eternal and universal qualities that could not be ignored. God was 'wholly other', a phrase often used by Barth as well, was actually drawn from Rudolf Otto. The uneasy alliance theologically with Barth (and a third party, Gogarten) did not last long, but a lifelong friendship was born of the early connections in resistance to the prevailing liberal theology.Bultmann was influenced by Heidegger's writing, particularly in existentialist ways of thinking. Bultmann's sense of the existential, however, is rather different form Heidegger and the other German philosophical establishment. He develops his terminology carefully, and explores the issues of creation, faith versus theology, and other important terms. He drew significantly from church history and the history of biblical interpretation, illustrating in important ways the conflicts of faith and modern worldviews, particularly the natural sciences and scientific methods at work in the modern world.Demythologising is perhaps the best known and least understood of Bultmann's concepts. Mythology is a pre-scientific method of looking at the world, in Bultmann's construct -- to demythologise is to strip away pre-scientific aspects of understanding. It does not mean to call all biblical stories myths, but does understand that some of the underpinnings of biblical understanding, even among those who were the original authors, have mythological preconceptions. Bultmann's works are explored topically in here, in Johnson's arrangement. Key texts from Bul