154 - Bultmann, Retrospect and Prospect: The Centenary Symposium at Wellesley

Bultmann, Retrospect and Prospect: The Centenary Symposium at Wellesley

Edited by Edward C. Hobbs

Philadelphia, Fortress, 1985. 113 Pp. $11.95.

Occasioned by the 1984 centennial of Rudolf Bultmann's birth, this slim volume of essays remembers the many-sided Marburger both through personal reminiscences and incisive reflections.

Placing Bultmann in context by evoking the theological mood of the 1920s, James M. Robinson develops the thesis that "the Heideggerianism imbedded in Jonas' Gnosis und spaetantiker Geist produced the revision of Bousset's outline of primitive Christianity that Bultmann himself carried out in his kerygmatic theology."

With characteristic lucidity and logic, Schubert M. Ogden brings Bultmann to bear on the recent proposal of James P. Mackey to make (once again!) the personal faith of the historical Jesus the norm for christology. Using many of the arguments Bultmann himself advanced against the life-of-Jesus christologies, Ogden patiently demonstrates the impossibility of Mackey's position. Against the familiar charge Mackey repeats, that Bultmann holds the kerygma rather than Jesus to be the source of faith, Ogden shows Bultmann to be far more nuanced: The apostolic preaching is "the primary norm of the kerygma today," but the historical Jesusunderstood as the event of his person and word-remains the "primal source" of the proclaimed kerygma.

While Helmut Koester holds out the likelihood that the Nag Hammadi documents will "confirm Bultmann's hypothesis of the existence of a preChristian Jewish Gnosticism," he criticizes his teacher for lapsing into Christian apologetics when Bultmann claims that only Paul and John have a "true eschatological understanding."

155 - Bultmann, Retrospect and Prospect: The Centenary Symposium at Wellesley

Similarly, Koester's confederate, Dieter Georgi, also laments Bultmann's apologetic thrust. Not only does it compromise the methods of the Religionsgeschichtliche Schule, but, by repeatedly stressing the uniqueness of Christianity, Bultmann's apologetics reinforce a traditional theme Georgi perceives "at the core of white male Christian imperialism."

Hans Jonas warmly recalls the heady excitement of Bultmann's seminars at Marburg, and Bultmann's literary executor, Antje Bultmann Lemke, gives illuminating selections from her father's previously unpublished letters. She further reveals that an editorial committee composed of herself, Eberhard Jüngel, Rudolf Smend, and Eduard Lohse has decided to publish occasional volumes of archival materials "according to known or anticipated interests," rather than in chronological sequence.

These essays are significant not only for their retrospective analyses of Bultmann's contributions, but for their identification of those aspects of his work that remain provocative for contemporary theology and religious studies. Through them, we glimpse once more Bultmann the philosopher, theologian, exegete, historian, and teacher. All that is lacking is Bultmann the preacher, a serious omission in light of the kerygmatic cast of his thought.

This centenary collection closes with Paul Lehmann joining others who have been associated with Wellesley in offering tribute to Louise Pettibone Smith, whose acclaimed 1934 translation of Jesus introduced Bultmann to the English-speaking world.

James F. Kay, Union Theological Seminary, New York, N.Y.