Kulturecke:

Rudolf Karl Bultmann:
Myth and Modernity

by Paul A. Schons

Originally published by the Germanic-American Institute in August, 2001.

Bultmann’s origins were safely within the framework of Protestant orthodoxy. His father was a Lutheran pastor in Wiefelstede (near Oldenburg). His paternal grandfather had been a missionary to Africa and his maternal grandfather a pastor of the pietistic tradition. There was apparently no doubt in the young Rudolf Bultmann's mind from childhood on that he would continue the rich religious tradition of his forefathers. At the apex of his career as a theologian, however, he would propose theories which would shake traditional theology to its foundations and evoke charges of heresy from theologians in Europe as well as America. Through the 20th and into the 21st centuries he would be one of the most controversial and influential figures in the development of Christian thought. The central thrust of his work Entmythologisierung (demythologization) continues to produce theological tremors.

Rudolf Bultmann was born in Wiefelstede, Germany on August 20, 1884. He attended school at the humanistic Gymnasium (college preparatory high school) in Oldenburg. Subsequently he studied theology at the Universities of Tbingen, Berlin and Marburg. He completed his doctoral degree in theology in 1910 at the University of Marburg. In 1912 he became an instructor in Marburg. He later taught at the Universities of Breslau (the city became a part of Poland after W.W.II) and the University of Giessen. His final appointment came in 1921 as a full professor at his alma mater, the University of Marburg. He would remain in that post until his retirement in 1951.

In his early years as a professor in Marburg Bultmann grew close to a colleague whose ideas would have profound effect on his own way of thinking and would ultimately lead to radical departures from traditional theology. The existentialist philosopher, Martin Heidegger, was at Marburg from 1922-1928. (It was precisely at this time that Heidegger was developing the theories which would appear in his Sein und Zeit (Being and Time) in 1927.) In those years Bultmann was struggling with his own perception that God must be understood as ”Wholly Other” from humanity. (He was concerned with certain humanizations in the understanding of God, even a deification of humanity in the contemporary approaches to God.) In Heidegger’s existentialism Bultmann found a means of dealing with and giving expression his own abstract ideas.

Bultmann had published very little until the early Marburg years. Beginning with the early years in Marburg, though, a lifetime of prolific publication and international recognition began. Just as his career as a scholar was beginning, however, the great German cataclysm of the 20th century began also. Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933. Though Bultmann was never very actively political during the Nazi years, he did associate himself with the Bekennende Kirche ( Confessing Church), the association of Protestant churches opposing the Nazi domination of church organization and opposing many of the moral affronts of the Nazi party.)

As a result of political silence, Bultmann was able to continue his academic life during World War II. It was at the height of the war that he gave the lecture which would initiate his continuing work with his central and most controversial thesis; In 1941 he presented the lecture, (“Neues Testament und Mythologie”. He initiated his campaign of Entmythologisierung (demythologization) at that time. He had concluded that the mythological way of thinking of the ancients had formed the scriptures and persisted in a way which made the scriptures inaccessible and thus meaningless for modern humanity. The people of today, he thought, had long since lost the capacity for mythological thinking which was so natural to the ancients.

He concluded that the gospels must be retold in a way accessible to modern humans. “Man kann nicht elektrisches Licht und Radioapparat benutzen, in Krankheitsfllen moderne medizinische und klinische Mittel in Anspruch nehmen und gleichzeitig an die Geister- und Wunderwelt des Neuen Testaments glauben.” (“One can not use electric lights and radios, make use of modern medicine and clinical science and at the same time believe in the world of spirits and miracles of the New Testament.”) He insisted that the gospels were not history but theology in story form. The next step was to question the significance of Jesus as a historical figure.

Even with the very abbreviated presentation of Bultmann’s ideas above, it becomes clear why it is that a great deal of controversy has surrounded his ideas, both in professional theological circles and at a popular level. The full range of controversy began with the publication of the demythologization thesis in the series Kerygma und Mythos between 1948 and 1953. The controversy spread to the United States with the publication of the translated version, Kerygma and Myth between 1953 and 1962.

Bultmann continued to expand his thesis and to intensify the controversy with his development of ideas on the historical Jesus. As he withdrew from a reliance on the person of Jesus as central to the gospel message he broke with and alienated the liberal theology of the times. He realized fully, however, that his ideas were not fully developed yet and were bigger than he, “Sie ist...eine schwere und umfassende Aufgabe, die berhaupt nicht einem Einzelnen obliegen kann, sondern von einer theologischen Generation eine Flle von Zeit und Kraft fordert.” (It is...a heavy and comprehensive task, which can not fall to an individual, but rather demands extensive time and effort from a theological generation.) Indeed, since his death his theories have been much expanded and won a good deal of acceptance. Even when not accepted, his ideas have colored and altered recent approaches to theology.

Bultmann retired from the university of Marburg in 1951. As much as his health allowed he continued to work with the many followers who had taken up his theories. He died in 1976 in the city where he had carried on his lifetime of academic work.