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 http://ext.sagepub.com/ The Expository Times

 http://ext.sagepub.com/content/90/11/324.citationThe online version of this article can be found at:

DOI: 10.1177/001452467909001102

1979 90: 324The Expository Times Graham Stanton

Biblical Classics : XII. Rudolf Bultmann: Jesus and the Word

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324

indeed the only possible interpretation of the incar-

nation. There have been a variety of interpretationsof the atonement, each influenced by thecontempor-

ary culture. Should there be a variety of interpreta-tions of incarnation rather than the total rejection of

the concept? Certainly it seems impossible to return

to the thought-world of the first century and relive the

experience of Jesus of Nazareth. Don Cupitt’s short

cut, therefore, seems to lead us to an unattainable

goal.Finally, is our treatment of the doctrine of priest-

hood to differ from our understanding of who Jesus

is? At what stage is there to be the cut-off point in

both quests? - the words of Jesus? the completedNT? the second century? or not at all? Do we have to

accept the comment of T. S. Eliot, made famous byDennis Nineham, that ’Christianity is always adapt-ing itself into something which can be believed’? But

then we have to ask, how much of the past must be

retained if Christianity is still to be recognizablyitself?The series has got off to an excellent start. Here are

two books that will keep us talking for a very longtime. We look forward to the promised volumes on

the Trinity and the Apostles’ Creed.

Biblical Classics:

XII. Rudolf Bultmann: Jesus and the Word

BY PROFESSOR GRAHAM STANTON, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON, KING’S COLLEGE

I

MANY who have a nodding acquaintance with

twentieth-century theology associate Bultmann with

radical scepticism concerning the historicity of the

gospels, with lack of interest in the historical Jesus,with ’demythologizing’ and with use of existentialism

in interpretation of the NT. On each of these

questions Bultmann has frequently been misunder-stood. But whether or not one accepts his conclu-

sions, his writings are of the utmost importance for

contemporary theology. The issues they raise will be

on the theologian’s agenda for a long time to come.

There is probably no better way to approach the

work of Bultmann for the first time than by a careful

reading of Jesus and the Word, for the main lines of

his later thought can nearly all be discerned here. The

importance of this book, which was first published in

German in 1926 with the simple title Jesus, is out of

all proportion to its size.

Jesus and the Word has had a rather curious historyin the English-speaking world. An English transla-

tion by L. P. Smith and E. Huntress was published in

New York in 1934 and in London in 1935. Over the

next fifteen years several influential British scholars

did discuss Bultmann’s use of form criticism in The

History of the Synoptic Tradition, the first edition of

which had appeared in 1921, but the publication of

Jesus and the Word seems largely to have been

ignored.22

My own first introduction to-study of the gospelswas A. M. Hunter’s The Work and Words of Jesus.This book was widely used in the English-speakingworld in the 1950s, but it is difficult to detect in it any

use of Bultmann’s writings on the gospels. In his

survey of scholarship, Interpreting theNew Testament

1900-1950, however, A. M. Hunter did include three

paragraphs on Jesus and the Word. ’When we learn

that Bultmann, the most sceptical critic since Strauss,is also one of the &dquo;dialectical&dquo; theologians, we are

tempted to murmur, &dquo;Is Saul also among the

prophets?&dquo; For, in Bultmann’s view, there is notmuch in the Gospels we can trust. Most of it is to be

ascribed to the creation of the early Christian

communities. In spite of this, Bultmann feels that he

is in a position to reconstruct the message of Jesus.’

These comments on Bultmann’s scepticism are typi-cal : most English-speaking scholars were usually too

busy attacking his form critical work to take his book

on Jesus seriously. Hunter’§-final point is rather more

perceptive. ’The charge which Windisch and others

have brought against him is that he confuses critical

scholarship with theological exegesis. The charge has

point. Years ago Tyrell complained that Harnack’sJesus was but the reflection of a liberal Protestant

face. Bultmann’s Jesus might be said to be the

reflection of a Barthian face. C’est dialectique, mais

ce n’est pas histoire’ (p. 54). To what extent has

Bultmann’s reconstruction of the historical Jesus

been influenced by his own theological position? Weshall return to this important question below.

In 1958 Bultmann’s Jesus and the Word was

reprinted as a Fontana paperback. This edition was

widely available until recently, but even though for

many years its price was just 2/6, it does not seem to

have been particularly influential. Why was such an

important book overlooked so frequently? By 1958

interest in Bultmann’s work in the English-speaking

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325

world was centred on his famous ’demythologizing’essay which had sparked off a lively theologicaldebate. In the following year James Robinson’s A 

New Quest of the Historical Jesus turned scholarlyeyes towards the so-called ‘post-Bultmannian’ quest.When Gunther Bornkamm’s Jesus of Nazareth first

appearedin

Englishin 1960

manyreviewers wel-

comed it as a less sceptical ’popular’ account of Jesus

than Bultmann’s book and it probably replaced Jesus

and the Word in students’ reading lists. In the wake of

the ’new quest’ the reviewers had tended to stress the

diffeiences and to miss the many similarities betweenthe master and his disciple.When I first read Jesus and the Word in 1965 I

shared the widespread  Anglo-Saxon prejudiceagainst Bultmann’s work. I quickly found Bult-

mann’s exposition of the teaching of Jesus to be

immensely powerful and very readable. Again and

againfamiliar verses

madea

fresh impact. Onre-reading it, my admiration has grown still further. I

am convinced that at some points it is open to serious

criticism, but it is one of the most importanttheological books of this century. Of its continuingimportance there is no doubt, for it raises issues

which are (or should be) central in contemporary

theological discussion.

II

In the opening eight pages of Jesus and the Word

Bultmann sets out his basic method and his under-

standing of the historian’s task. He insists that historycannot be observed objectively as can natural

phenomena. In every word which the historian saysabout history he is saying at the same time somethingabout himself. ’History does not speak when a man

stops his ears, that is, when he assumes neutrality,but speaks only when he comes seeking answers to

the questions which agitate him’ (I If.).Bultmann concedes that there is an approach to

history which seeks by its method to achieve objectiv-ity. It is extremely successful in dealing with that partof history which can be grasped by objective method,

for example in determining the correctchronologicalsequence of events. ’But an approach so limited

misses the true significance of history’ (12). Bult-

mann then stresses that he does not wish to lead the

reader to any ’view’ of history, but to a highlypersonal encounter with history.

In a few deftly worded opening paragraphs Bult-

mann has parted company with a long tradition of

historiography. His own approach was so bold and so

new that perhaps it was not surprising that the

translators of Jesus and the Word misunderstood its

significance. The opening sentence of their preface to

the 1958 edition runs as follows: ’Professor Rudolf

Bultmann’s Jesus, here translated, is a strictly histori-

cal presentation of the teaching of Jesus in the setting

of the thought of his own time’ (5). Bultmann, on the

other hand, takes pains to emphasize that he is not

primarily concerned to provide a ’strictly historical

presentation’, but a ’continuous dialogue with his-

tory’. For Bultmann the actual encounter with historytakes place only in the dialogue. ’This dialogue is no

clever exercise of

subjectivityon the observer’s

part,but a real interrogating of history, in the course of

which the historian puts this subjectivity of his in

question, and is ready to listen to history as an

authority’ (I lf.).Bultmann insists that the historian cannot ’ob-

serve’ history from a neutral detached standpoint. In

his later important essay, ’Is Exegesis without Pre-

suppositions Possible?’ this point is expounded more

fully: the exegete always has his own specific perspec-tive, his own ’pre-understanding’, his own definite

way of asking questions of the text. This is surelycorrect. But it

raises immediatelythe further

ques-tion of the appropriate starting point in interpretingthe NT.

For Bultmann, reconstruction of the earliest stageof the Palestinian tradition is carried out with the

conscious conviction that the words of Jesus do have

something to say to the present. ’They meet us with

the question of how we are to interpret our own

existence. That we be ourselves deeply disturbed bythe problem of our own life is therefore the indispens-able condition of our inquiry’ (16).Whether or not one accepts his conclusions,

Bultmann’s preferenceon

theological grounds forsome parts of the synoptic traditions can be ap-

preciated, as can his use of the language of existen-

tialism to draw out the significance of the teaching of

Jesus for modern man. But already in Jesus and the

Word, and even more clearly in later writings, he

takes a further step which is much more question-able.

Bultmann does not merely allow his own theologi-cal convictions to guide him in his exposition of the

teaching of Jesus, he also allows his own vantage

point to determine which parts of the tradition are

relevant. In short, he deliberately unites historicaland theological interpretation.5

5

The criteria which are used for accepting or

rejecting parts of the synoptic tradition are not simplystrictly historical. Bultmann is interested only in

those parts of the synoptic traditions which confront

us with the question of how we are to interpret our

own existence. He is even prepared to utilize

passages which he believes (on historical grounds) to

belong to a later stratum of the tradition. With

reference to Lk 1 ¡27-2H and Mk 331-35 , Bultmann states

that the early Church has shown vividly how the

decisive Either-Or (the call to decide for the kingdomof God) dominates the preaching of Jesus, how everyother interest disappears before the exclusiveness of

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326

the demand of God (32f.). With reference to Mt 6’4,he suggests that perhaps it is an old oriental proverbthat Jesus or the Church has appropriated and used to

make clear to the hearer the Either-Or (75).Sayings which stem from the early Church or from

first century Judaism rather than from the historical

Jesus can be accepted if they are judged to beconsistent with those parts of the tradition which

Bultmann wishes to utilize. Bultmann states quiteexplicitly that in Jesus and the Word he is concerned

with the content, meaning and validity for us ofwhat

is taught in the gospels. The corollary is hardlysurprising: the question of how much the historical

Jesus and how much other people have contributed

to that content is of secondary importance (91).Bultmann tells his readers that he presupposes the

critical conclusions he reached in his The History ofthe Synoptic Tradition. In that book his rigorous study

of the development of the synoptic traditions sug-

gests that the historicity of many parts of the synopticgospels is in doubt and that there are immense

ditFculties to be overcome if the teaching of the

historical Jesus is to be reconstructed. Yet in Jesus

and the Word he was able to devote 150 pages to an

exposition of that teaching! Are we to conclude that Bultmann changed his

mind between 1921 and 1926? It is no accident that

between the publication of the History and Jesus and

the Word. Bultmann reviewed with a considerable

degree of agreement Karl Barth’s Römerbrief and

published an essay on the problem of a theologicalexegesis of the NT.  A. M. Hunter’s quip that

Bultmann’s Jesus might be said to be the reflection of

a Barthian face is not completely wide of the mark. In

the History Bultmann is concerned with thoroughanalysis of the development of the synoptic tradi-

tions. Five years later in Jesus and the Word he does

not ignore his earlier historical conclusions, but he is

engaged on a fundamentally different task, an

interpretation of the contemporary significance of

what he takes to be the ’central core’ of the tradition

about Jesus. It is for this reason that he is able to

write: ’By the tradition Jesus is named as the bearer

of the message: according tooverwhelming probabil-ity he really was. Should it prove otherwise, that does

not change in any way what is said in the record. I see

then no objection to naming Jesus throughout as the

speaker. Whoever prefers to put the name of &dquo;Jesus&dquo;

always in quotation marks and let it stand as an

abbreviation for the historical phenomenon with

which we are concerned is free to do so’ (18).Bultmann was able to publish his impressive

exposition of the teaching of Jesus and yet maintain

firmly throughouthis career that the

kerygmawas not

concerned with more than the Dass (the mere fact) ofthe existence of Jesus of Nazareth. How was he able

to do this? In his later writings Bultmann emphasized

the gulf between Jesus the proclaimer and the earlyChurch’s proclamation of him in the kerygma: the

proclaimer became the proclaimed. But at the same

time for Bultmann there is continuity between the

teaching of the historical Jesus and the proclamationof him in the first post-Easter communities .6 Bult-

mann’s interpretation of the preachingof

Jesus isremarkably similar to his interpretation (elsewhere)of Pauline and Johannine theology

7

This becomes particularly clear in the closingsentences of Jesus and the Word. Jesus is the one sent

by God as bearer of the word, and in the word he

assures man of the forgiveness of God. ’Man is

constrained to decision by the word which brings a

new element into his situation, and the word there-

fore becomes to him an event; for it to become an

event, the hearer is essential.... Whether his word is

truth, whether he is sent from God - that is the

decision to which the hearer is constrained, and theword of Jesus remains: &dquo;Blessed is he who finds no

cause of offence in me&dquo;’ (153f.). The decision to

which the hearer of the words of Jesus is called is a

decision for or against Jesus as the one sent from

God. In concluding his book thus, Bultmann scarcelyconceals that he is interpreting the teaching of Jesus

in the light of his understanding of the kerygma of the

early Church.

III

Bultmann’s fusion of historical reconstruction and

theological interpretation is both the strength and the

weakness of Jesus and the Word. Bultmann’s primaryconcern, like Barth’s in his R6merbrief, was to allow

first century texts to ’speak’ anew to modern man. Byadopting a particular theological vantage point Bult-

mann was able to develop an exposition of the

teaching of Jesus which is often very moving. The

reader can hardly doubt the appropriateness of his

use of existentialist categories for interpreting partsof that teaching. By using theological rather than

strictly historical criteria Bultmann is also able to

present an account of the teaching of Jesus which

stresses its coherence.

 A brief sketch of the historical background of the

ministry is followed by three chapters which make upthe main part of the book; they are described as three

concentric circles in each of which we are concerned

with the same question (18). The first chapterexpounds Jesus’ teaching of the coming of the

kingdom of God: its coming confronts men with a

decision to live their lives in accordance with the will

of God. The second chapter discusses the ethical

teachingof Jesus and leads to the conclusion that the

eschatological message and the preaching of the will

of God are to be comprehended as a unity (95). In the

final chapter we reach the smallest of the concentric

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327

. circles, the ’common centre’ which is expoundedunder the title ’God the Remote and the Near’.

But at what price coherence, clarity and a calling in

question of modern man’s habitual ways of self-

understanding ? By concentrating on a theologicalinterpretation of the teaching of Jesus which will

confront twentieth-centuryman

witha

call fordecision, Bultmann fails to carry through sufficientlyrigorously the task of historical reconstruction: there

is more than a grain of truth in the criticism that

Bultmann’s Jesus looks very much like a twentieth-

century German Lutheran preacher! Bultmann does

not set Jesus sufficiently firmly in the context of

first-century Judaism. Jesus is referred to frequentlyas ’a prophet and a rabbi’. But his use of ’rabbi’ with

reference to the first century is almost certainly an

anachronism and there is no doubt that Jesus differed

very considerably both from ’prophets’ and from

,rabbis’.8The disciples of Jesus are conspicuous by their

absence, yet Jesus’ relationship with his circle of

disciples is a particularly distinctive and importanttrait. Bultmann’s account of the message of Jesus

opens with a reference to Lk 1()23f- in which the

actions as well as the words of Jesus are seen as

marking the beginping of the kingdom of God, but

the actions of Jesus are rarely referred to in the pageswhich follow. Yet the traditions repeatedly point to

the close link between the actions and the teaching ofJesus. Ernst Fuchs’ contention that Jesus’ conduct

was the framework of his proclamation is no

exaggeration.~9

Bultmann believes that Jesus was finally crucified

as a messianic prophet, but not as Messiah (27).There are, however, good grounds for accepting the

historicity of the inscription of the charge, ’The Kingof the Jews’ (Mk !5~). When Jesus was confronted

with the charge that he thought himself to be the

Messiah, he accepted theaccurac~

of the charge byhis silence, if not in any other way. Since neither the

resurrection faith of the earliest Christians nor their

study of scripture can explain satisfactorily the

application of the title Messiah to Jesus, we are

driven to the conclusion that the actions and teachingof Jesus led at least some to accept that Jesus saw

himself as Messiah.

Taken as an exposition of some of the central

emphases of the teaching of Jesus, Jesus and the

Word is quite superb and has few if any rivals fiftyyears later. No less clearly than Barth’s R6merbrief,this book marks a watershed in modern theology.There will surely be attempts from time to time to see

the essence of Christianity in a particular reconstruc-

tion of the historical Jesus or in the example of Jesus,at the expense of the kerygma of the Cross and

Resurrection. Whenever that happens, Bultmann’s

denunciation of those who make Jesus into an

appealing religious hero will need to be heard again.My main criticism of Jesus and the Word is not that

Bultmann reaches excessively sceptical conclusions.

That complaint has been heard often enough before,but all too rarely on the basis of sustained critical

interaction with Bultmann’s form critical work.&dquo; Torevive that criticism of Jesus and the Word would be

to overlook Bultmann’s insistence that he is not

concerned to set out for ’observation’ all that critical

scholarship can say about the historical Jesus.

Rather, I believe that in his attempt to expose the

contemporary significance of Jesus Bultmann has cut

historical corners. By isolating those parts of the

tradition which can most easily be used to bridge the

gap between the first and twentieth centuries, Bult-

mann has failed to to justice to the richness of thesynoptic traditions of the teaching and actions of

Jesus. Some parts of those traditions may well not

cohere very easily with other parts. And some partsmay not seem to make any kind of sense in the

modern world, but they may need to be heard

nonetheless. Whenever the distinction between his-

torical reconstruction and theological interpretationis blurred, there is always the danger that the text will

be allowed to say precisely what the modern exegeteor theologian wishes. In this respect, Bultmann’s

Jesus and Barth’s R6merbrief are twins.

1For British reactions to The History of the SynopticTradition, see V. Taylor, The Formation of the GospelTradition [1933] and W. Manson, Jesus the Messiah [1943].

2T. W. Manson’s The Teaching of Jesus [1931] contains

many references to scholarly German literature, but neither

of Bultmann’s books on the gospels is referred to. In the

brief additional notes to the second edition published in

1935 there is one (positive) reference to each book (330). In

later years Manson was very critical of Bultmann: ’Professor

Bultmann’s History of the Synoptic Tradition is an account,

not ofhow the life of Jesus produced the tradition, but ofhow the tradition produced the life of Jesus. And when the

work of the tradition has been undone, there is very little of

Jesus left’ (Studies in the Gospels and Epistles [1962], 6f.).

3Page references to Jesus and the Word are to the 1958

Fontana edition.

4For a fuller discussion, see my essay ’Presuppositions in

New Testament Criticism’ in ed. I. H. Marshall, New

Testament Interpretation (Exeter [1977]), 60-74.

5For a full discussion (to whichI am deeply indebted) see

R. Morgan, The Nature of New Testament Theology,(London [1973]), 37ff. See also N. A. Dahl’s comments in

The Crucified Messiah and Other Essays (Minneapolis[1974]), 90ff.

6Most scholars have failed to observe that in this respectand in many other ways Bultmann anticipated many of the

emphases of the so-called ’new quest’.

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328

7So also W. Schmithals, An Introduction to the Theology

of Rudolf Bultmann (Eng. tr. London [1968]), 208f.

8See M. Hengel, Nachfolge und Charisma (Berlin[1968]).

9Studies of the Historical Jesus (Eng. tr. London [1964]),

21.

10N. A. Dahl, The Crucified Messiah and Other Essays,

10ff.11

For a modest attempt to do this, see my essay ’Form

Criticism Revisited’, in M. D. Hooker and C. J. A. Hickling(ed.), What About the New Testament? (London [1975]),13-27.

The Problem of Isaiah 24-27*

BY THE REVEREND RICHARD J. COGGINS, M.A.. B.D., KING’S COLLEGE, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON

MUCH of what has been written in the past on Isaiah

has tended to stress the differences between the

various parts of the book, whereas an emphasis in

more recent study has been on the ways in which the

whole book of Isaiah should be regarded as a unity1

The earlier emphasis was entirely proper when itneeded to be shown that the whole could not be

regarded as the product of one individual; but it

seems that even in strongly conservative circles the

existence of ’Deutero-Isaiah’ is now widely accepted,and so it is the inner relation of the different parts of

the Isaiah tradition which now needs closer investiga-tion.

In this respect Isa 24-27, sometimes called ’the

Isaiah apocalypse’ and commonly regarded as the

latest part of the book, demands special attention.

Various recent studies have conspicuously failed to

show any scholarly consensus relating to these

chapters, and it may be appropriate to look at four

distinct but related questions which illustrate the

peculiar problems here involved. These questionsare, first, the unity of Isa 24-27; secondly, the relation

of these chapters to the rest of the Isaiah tradition;

thirdly, their date; and finally, their relation to

apocalyptic. In all of these issues, the over-ridingproblem is soon seen to be that of the appropriatecriteria to be applied.

1. The Unity of Isa 24-27. Sharply differing views

have been put forward concerning the unity, or

otherwise, of these chapters; but many of the

differences have arisen less from disagreement about

the actual structure of the material than from the use

of different criteria as to what might be required to

speak of a ’unity’. This is made very clear by G. N. M.

Habets’- who sets on one side three or four scholars

who have regarded the section as a unity, and on the

other a larger number who have, apparently, taken

the opposite view. But when one examines the works

under consideration in greater detail, or even when

one notes more carefully Habets’ own quotations andsummaries, it soon becomes clear that the difference

is largely one of terminology. No one disputes that

there is a variety of literary genres and themes to be

discerned here; the question at issue is largely the

extent to which this variety has been drawn togetherin some over-arching principle. This general consid-

eration continues to hold good whichever criterionfor unity is applied: theme, prosodic considerations

of various kinds, alleged historical background, and

so on.

Despite this variety and uncertainty, there appearsto be almost unanimous agreement in treating these

chapters as in some sense unified. I know of no

commentator who wishes to see any kind of radical

break as coming within these chapters, though there

is a good deal of dispute whether the closest links

within Isaiah are with what follows or with what

precedes. There ig, that is to say, a unity imposedupon these chapters by the recurrence of the theme ofthe city (2410-1., 251-5, 26’-B by the picture of death

and sheol (2417-2B 2S6.K, 2(~&dquo;-’‘’); and by the recurrent

structure of threat-war-victory-peace which appearsto run through these chapters. W. R. Miller providesa detailed structural analysis, which appears to be

soundly based, though it is noteworthy that of his six

examples within these chapters, only two are com-

plete. It may be that he is a little dismissive in

explaining the prevalence of the incomplete pattern. All of this would appear to lend weight to the

suggestion that the book of Isaiah is finally made upof a substantial number of small units, many of them

three or four chapters long, each containing a certain

basic unity, though the internal detail will be very

varied, and each contributing to the complex whole

which makes up Isa 1-fi6. 24-27 will be such a unity;one might compare it with, for example, the ’Im-

manuel’ section, 61-<)6 (EVV. 9~) where again we see

considerable internal variety, but also a unity of

theme which holds the material together, and at the

same time clear indications that the total complex has

a particular place within the build-up of the Isaiah

tradition.

2. Isaiah 24-27 and the Book of Isaiah. Here the

problems are greater. The (sometimes necessarily)over-simplified introductions to the book of Isaiah

*The substance of what follows is a paper read at the

King’s College, London, Old Testament Seminar in Feb-

ruary, 1978. ’

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