The Bible in the Contemporary World: Interview with Richard Bauckham

Richard Bauckham is professor emeritus of New Testament studies at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland. He is also senior scholar at Ridley Hall, Cambridge and a fellow of both the British Academy and the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He is the author of many distinguished works. The following interview revolves around Professor Bauckham’s book, The Bible in the Contemporary World.

David George Moore conducted the interview. Dave blogs at www.twocities.org.

Moore: In the introduction you write that “biblical surprises should also be part of the Bible’s relevance to the contemporary world.” Would you unpack that a bit for us?

Bauckham: I meant that we should never feel too satisfied that we know what the Bible’s messages are and how they relate to the contemporary world. If we go on studying Scripture at the same time as we attend to what is happening in our world there will always be fresh insights.

Moore: Some continue to argue that Gnosticism is compatible with Christianity. It seems fairly obvious that this is not the case, so why do so many keep seeking to persuade us otherwise?

Bauckham: We live in a culture that values diversity and so I think the idea that early Christianity was more diverse than we thought is appealing. Moreover, the institutional church is not popular and so the idea of an early version of Christianity that was suppressed by the institutional church for political reasons also appeals. But Gnosticism is a slippery term. I think, for the sake of clarity, we should limit it to the view that the material world was created by an inferior and incompetent deity, identified with the God of the Old Testament, while the Father of Jesus Christ is an altogether different, supreme God. Jesus came from the Father with a message for the elect: that they do not belong in this world, in which they are trapped by their bodies and the hostile god of this world, and can escape to the kingdom of the Father. Gnosticism is anti-Jewish, anti-body, anti-matter.

Moore: It seems quite evident that British biblical scholars are generally more apt than their American counterparts to discuss the abuses of capitalism and the importance of stewarding the environment. If I am correct in my observation, what do you attribute this to?

Bauckham: There is a strong tradition in USA of association of conservative Christianity with right-wing politics and economics. This doesn’t exist in UK. You also need to remember that the political spectrum in USA is considerably to the right of the spectrum in the UK.

Moore: The modern idea of progress is a stubborn and persistent idea. It is resilient in the face of modern horrors like the great wars, genocide, and so much more. How can we better help others see the unbiblical assumptions behind the modern notion of progress?

Bauckham: I always have to explain that, when I criticize the idea of progress, I am not denying that many things have improved (e.g. medicine). But other things have got worse (e.g. climate change). We cannot empirically weigh up all the gains and losses and say that on balance and in total the world is constantly getting better. The idea of progress is an ideology that distorts by making us notice what seem to be improvements and to miss what are often serious downsides of those very improvements. “Progress” very often has victims, but the beneficiaries of this “progress” can the more easily ignore them because the ideology of progress consigns them to a past that is being left behind.

In its origins the idea of progress is a secular version of Christian eschatology. Perhaps that’s why so many Christians are still firm believers in it. But the Christian hope is for a future that comes from God and is not just for those lucky enough to live in the vanguard of progress but even for the dead.

Moore: It is common to hear people announce the death of the Enlightenment Project. Is the Enlightenment over, and if it isn’t, why do so many say it is?

Bauckham: Of course, the Enlightenment was a complex phenomenon, like all such historical movements. Some of its legacy is more or less permanent, other aspects less so. I think many of us were very impressed by the claim that postmodernism was about to succeed the Enlightenment, but it hasn’t really worked out that way. It looks like the West now has a culture that mixes elements of both.

Moore: Do Christians in the West generally have the correct understanding of freedom?

Bauckham: My impression is that Christians generally don’t think about what true freedom is. They unthinkingly go along with the views that are current in our culture. But, seeing that freedom is probably the most powerful concept in contemporary western culture, it is surely vital that Christians think critically about it.

Moore: Give us a few things that you would like your readers to take away from reading The Bible in the Contemporary World.

Bauckham: I hope many readers will come away with the sense that the Bible speaks more broadly to the big issues of our time than they have realized before. And I hope many readers will find that the Bible invites them to be more concerned with the big issues of our time than they have been before.

I begin as I did Wednesday.

If Christ is the incarnation of God, and if that means Who Christ is should shape our view of Who God is, what’s next? Greg Boyd, in The Crucifixion of the Warrior God, contends that the center of the center is the cross. So the question becomes How central is the cross to your view of Christ? And if the cross is central, the implication is clear: the cross determines our understanding of Who God is. Which means, we need a cruci-centric understanding of God, what God is doing, and on how to read the Bible.

This is the deep logic of Boyd’s book. God is seen in Christ, and Christ is seen in the Cross, so therefore God is seen in the Cross. So the message of the Bible is cruciform.

The Bible is cross-centered.

Jesus says so:

. Not realizing they are talking to the resurrected Lord, these two disciples express their disillusionment and bewilderment over his crucifixion (Luke 24:19-24). Jesus responds by rebuking them for being “slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken” (v. 25). Then, “beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself (v. 27), which, more specifically, meant that he showed them that “the Messiah [had] to suffer these things and then enter his glory” (v. 26). 175

For example, reciting a traditional liturgy that he had received from others, Paul says that ‘Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures” (l Cor 15:3).7 So too, while preaching to King Agrippa, Paul claims he is “saying nothing beyond what the prophets and Moses said would happen—that the Messiah would suffer …” (Acts 26:22-23). Peter included this point in his preaching as well, telling a crowd that in Christ “God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, saying that his Messiah would suffer” (Acts 3:18, cf. 3:22). 176

His actions were cruciform:

For example, Jesus rebelled against social norms by the dignified way he served, interacted with, and even touched lepers as well as other “unclean” people (e.g., Matt 8:1-3, 9:20-22,10:8,11:5, 26:6). So too, Jesus humbly served and engaged with the poor, the oppressed, people with infirmities (who were generally deemed to be afflicted by God), and women—even women with shameful pasts (e.g., Matt 9:27-34; Luke 7:38-50, 18:35-42; John 4:4-38). 183

A brief pause: if the cross is the center of the Bible — the Bible is cruciform in theology — is not our view of God and all that God says and all that God does to be understood through a cruciform lens? Only in the cross does one come to terms completely with the revelation of God for our redemption. Only there.

What does this mean for reading the Bible? I continue with…

John says so:

Richard Bauckham highlights another way in which the centrality of the cross is expressed in John’s Gospel when he notes that the motif of the son of man being “lifted up” (John 3:13-14; 8:28; 12:32, 34) and the ‘I am” statements that allude to Jesus’s divine identity throughout this Gospel (John 6:20; 8:24, 26, 58; 13:19; 18:5-8) are anchored in a particular christological interpretation of Isaiah 53:13 in which Yahweh states that his servant “will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted.’ 186

Paul says so:

As a matter of fact, the cross is so central to Paul’s understanding of the Gospel [small “g”, sic] that he sometimes equates “the Gospel” with “the message of the cross,” using the two phrases interchangeably (l Cor 1:17-18, 23).( Hence, to be an enemy of the Gospel is to be an enemy “of the cross’ (Phil 3:18). Similarly, whenever Paul mentions “Christ,” he has “Christ crucified” in mind, as Moltmann has observed, even when discussing Christ in his resurrected power.

So completely does the crucified Christ encompass everything pertaining to the Gospel for Paul that he could tell the Corinthians that he “resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (l Cor 2:2). 193

The Rest of the NT says so:

In the passage that most scholars consider to be the interpretive key to this entire book (Rev 5:1-10), we learn that the only one who is worthy to ‘open the scroll”—reflecting the secret of God’s ways of governing the world and triumphing over evil—is the slaughtered (sphazo) little lamb (arnion) (Rev 5:2-5). 200

So too, the author emphasizes the fact that it was only by suffering that Jesus “learned obedience” (Heb 5:8), was made “perfect” (5:9), and became “the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him” (5:9). 202

“If you suffer for doing good and you endure it,” he notes, “this is commendable before God, for to this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps” (l Pet 2:20-21, cf. 3:17-18). So too, Peter notes, “since Christ suffered in his body,” discipies should “arm [themselves] also with the same attitude” (l Pet 4:1). 203

Some will question this but this is what happens when the cross becomes the paradigm for Bible reading and behavior: The cross implies nonviolence because the cross absorbs the violence and undoes it:

We are specifically instructed to “bless,” “pray for,” “do good” to, ‘be merciful” toward, and to “lend to” our enemies “without expecting to get anything back” (Matt 5:44-45; Luke 6:28-29, 35). These are not inner dispositions; they are concrete behaviors. 208

The behavioral ramifications of cruciform love are also evident in Paul. As we saw above, in Romans 12 he instructs disciples to “bless” rather than “curse” those who persecute us (v. 14), to never “repay evil for evil” (v. 17) and to never “exact revenge” (v. 19). Instead, we are to ‘overcome evil with good” (v. 21) by feeding enemies when they are hungry and offering them something to drink when they are thirsty (v. 20). 209

Any reading then of the Bible that affirms violence, Boyd is saying, counters the revelation of God in Christ of the cross.

I do not dispute that our commitment to nonviolence in the face of the world’s massive injustice requires a confidence that God will carry out justice in the end. However, the assumption that this requires God to act in a noncruciform way by engaging in violence is problematic, for at least three reasons. First, I will later argue that as with every other aspect of our theology, our conception of God’s “wrath” must be anchored in the cross (vol. 2, ch. 15). … Second, we saw above that Jesus predicates his command to love indiscriminately and to refrain from all violence not on pragmatic or strategic grounds but on the fact that this alone reflects the character of the Father. … . And this is also why Jesus, who is the one perfect expression of God’s very essence (Heb 1:3), refused to respond to his aggressors with violence and why he forbade others to do the same (Matt 26:51-53).

The final chapter of Tim Keller’s new book Making Sense of God: An Invitation to the Skeptical turns to what Keller finds is the best argument for Christian faith. Bottom line: it is Jesus. He starts the chapter acknowledging that the previous chapter (see Is it Reasonable?), and for that matter much of the material in the book, provides a convincing argument that it is reasonable to doubt the scientific materialism and secular humanism that governs much of Western culture these days. But this alone isn’t enough to bring anyone to Christ. Why should we find the Christian faith convincing?  In Keller’s view our best argument is the person of Jesus Christ – his life, his teachings, and his resurrection.  While Christianity appears to be shrinking in the West, it is growing globally with its center in the message of Jesus.

Why might this be? What is considered by many in the West (at least in academia) to be a symbol of Western imperialism is being embraced around the globe. Keller makes an important observation (following Richard Bauckham) .

Even when Jesus has been used to legitimate oppression, as in the nineteenth-century American South, the African slaves themselves found their inspiration and power in Jesus to resist their domination. Even though during the early-modern period Christianity was tied too closely to European and American colonialism and empire, today most of the most vital and largest Christian populations are now nonwhite, non-Western. No matter how many efforts have been made to capture and deploy Jesus for imperialistic ends, he has always escaped them. (p. 229)

The church can, at times, be usurped and manipulated as a tool for power. But this is contrary to the gospel and to the teachings of Christ – as many Christians have realized.

Keller starts by explaining why we can trust the Gospels for a reasonably accurate pictures of the life and teaching of Jesus. He makes no appeal to inerrancy or to inspiration. Rather there are valid reasons to think that the Gospels provide access to eyewitness accounts of this life and teaching of Jesus. The gap between the events of Jesus’s life and the writing of Mark covers a few decades, but it is short enough that Mark likely relied on oral histories rather than oral traditions.  Keller refers to Richard Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses to make the case. Keller suggests that “the Gospels do not show signs of having been shaped to fit the needs and sensibilities of the cultures and communities of the time.” (p. 231)  I think he may be overstating the case here, the Gospels appear to be shaped to convey their message to particular audiences – and this accounts for the differing ways the material is arranged – but there is no convincing evidence that the authors invented things out of thin air to do so.  There is every reason to believe that the story of Jesus is substantially rooted in history.

Given this, what are the claims that draw us toward Jesus?

The Character of Jesus. He taught and acted as one having authority – but did so with compassion and justice for the oppressed. “Jesus combines high majesty with the greatest humility, he joins the strongest commitment to justice with astonishing mercy and grace, he reveals a transcendent self-sufficiency and yet entire trust in and reliance upon his heavenly Father.” (p. 233) Keller pulls together a number of pairs of traits that might surprise. Among them: tenderness without weakness, boldness without harshness, humility without uncertainty, integrity without rigidity, passion without prejudice.

The Wisdom and Freedom of Jesus. He is wise in his interactions with people – both the powerful and the powerless. He was not bound by the rules of the day but by the greatest commandments and his mission. Love one another.

The Claims of Jesus. All four Gospel writers portray Jesus as, in some fashion, the embodiment of Israel’s God. This can be subtle or direct, through both words and actions. Keller doesn’t refer to Hays’s books Reading Backwards or Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels, but I find these books helpful in understanding the depth of the claim being made by the Gospel writers based on the life and teachings of Jesus. Of course, one could argue that the claims of deity are an invention of the early church.  One strong argument against this – and one that Keller elaborates – is that Jewish culture was deeply monotheistic. This isn’t something that would be invented and argued from Israel’s Scripture without grounding in an inescapable reality of Jesus life and teaching.

The Resurrection of Jesus. The capstone to any argument centered on Jesus is the resurrection. Keller points to N. T. Wright’s The Resurrection of the Son of God  to make his case, but many other recent books also deal with the Resurrection.  The resurrection is impossible – if one starts with this assumption – but otherwise the case for historicity is quite strong. The most significant argument in my opinion is the effect the witness to the resurrection had on the followers of Jesus – from beaten “rebels” to founders of a church that has endured for more than 2000 years. Of course, if the resurrection is history, they were not founders of anything – they were convinced and convicted followers of God through Jesus the Messiah.

Despite the fact that they were poor, few, and marginal, they developed a confidence and fearlessness that enabled them to spread the Gospel gladly, even at the cost of their own lives. Some have thought that the disciples stole the body, but people do not die for a hoax. (p. 243)

If we try to explain the changed lives of the early Christians, we may find ourselves making even greater leaps of faith than if we believed in the Resurrection itself. (p. 244)

Obviously this argument isn’t going to convince every skeptic (and there are many questions that need much more discussion – Keller points to his earlier book The Reason for God as a start). But it is a call to consider the claims of the Gospel.

A Final Note. Tim Keller has a heart directed toward reaching those in our secular culture who are quick to dismiss the Gospel as an outdated, outgrown, and oppressive ancient myth. He structures his arguments in a way that may make some evangelicals wary, but in a way that will connect with this audience and open some minds. Making Sense of God, and his earlier The Reason for God, provide a valuable resource for the church – and for anyone desiring to reach the non-Christians in academic or professional environments. I doubt if the same issues come up everywhere (although some certainly do) and there may be other equally effective approaches in other contexts – Christian ministry isn’t a one-size-fits-all endeavor – but I expect that the insights gained from these two books will be worthwhile whatever the context.

What is the best argument for Christian faith?

If you wish to contact me directly you may do so at rjs4mail[at]att.net

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In our last post (Are We Morally Obligated) on Tim Keller’s recent book Making Sense of God: An Invitation to the Skeptical we dug into the issue of the foundation for morals … with a rather vigorous discussion in the comments. In the next chapter Keller digs in deeper, and suggests an important role for religious belief in general and Christian faith in particular.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Most Americans will recognize this paragraph.  It comes from the Declaration of Independence passed by the 2nd Continental Congress on July 4th 1776.  Today many Westerners would strike the phrase “by their Creator” and simply affirm that all humans are endowed with certain unalienable Rights.  The UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights merely lists these as self-evident (Keller cites this document) .  The rights and freedoms described are given a practical motivation – to preserve the peace for the good of all – but other than this they simply “are” inalienable rights. Many of them are distinctly Modern and Western in focus. “Article 18: Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.“

Many countries and peoples around the world see this document as a form of Western Imperialism. Why should people have a right to change religion? Why should involuntary marriage be prohibited? Why isn’t torture a valid way to get information? (oh wait, maybe even some Westerners have problems with this one!) and we could go on. The more fundamental question is clear … why do humans have any “rights” at all?  Capacity arguments are often advanced, but these leave the very young, the very old, and the disabled at risk. Why do these people have rights?

Keller discusses two case studies for the foundation of human rights.  The first, advanced by Harvard Philosopher John Rawls is based on the notion that  rights should be “status blind.” That is, a rational society will base inalienable human rights on the best outcome for everyone no matter their station in life. If we had to set up a society and then were placed into it by a random luck of the draw, how would we arrange the structure of the society?  Keller, citing other writers, including a Harvard political philosopher, suggests that this is insufficient because all notions of justice involve judgments of one sort or another.  The argument that human rights are “rational” and trampling on rights “irrational” simply doesn’t work.

The second case study comes from Martin Luther King Jr.  His argument for desegregation wasn’t based on a rational argument. It was based on a deeply moral argument.  Human rights are only inalienable if they are real – endowed in the nature of the cosmos – rather than merely rational.

Drawing on the biblical teaching that every human being is created in the image of God (Genesis 1:26-27), he wrote that God’s image in us gives every person

a uniqueness, it gives him worth, it gives him a dignity. And we must never forget this as a nation: there are no gradations in the image of God. Every man from a treble white to a bass black is significant on God’s keyboard, precisely because every man is made in the image of God.

The Bible gives us the strongest possible foundation for the idea of inalienable human rights. Your neighbor comes into your presence with an inherent worth, an inviolable dignity (Genesis 9:6). Martin Luther King Jr. did not ask white America to make African Americans free to pursue rational self-interest, their own individual definitions of a fulfilling life. Rather, quoting Amos 5:24, he called them to not be satisfied until “justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.” The secular approach of Rawls pales before the Christian foundation for justice used by Dr. King. (p. 199)

After exploring modern and post-modern foundations (or lack thereof) for justice and human rights, Keller concludes that “without any belief in objective moral facts, there is no way to build a program of justice.” (p. 204)

A nonoppressive absolute. This isn’t to deny that religion has been used as a bludgeon of oppression rather than a tool for justice. Certainly the Christian church has used “biblical truth” to marginalize and demonize peoples. Other religions have been equally oppressive at times. Keller finds that Christian faith does offer a way forward.   He uses Richard Bauckham’s “illuminating essay” Reading Scripture as a Coherent Story in The Art of Reading Scripture to frame the discussion.

First, the Christian story does not give us “all the answers.”  Keller turns to one of my favorite books as illustration. “Job’s friends smugly think they have the ways of God figured out … However, at the end of the book of Job, they are condemned by God. God alone has the full perspective on things. We only see in part.” (p. 205) We should retain humility and realize that we do not have all the answers.

Second, the Christian story does give hope for justice, but also makes it clear that we do not establish this justice. “For a Christian, then, redemption cannot be a utopian hope in inevitable progress or in human ingenuity, but only in God, and in God’s time.” (p. 206)

Finally (and most importantly), the Christian story is a story of reversal. God repeatedly chooses the lesser person, second or later sons: Isaac not Ishmael, Jacob not Esau, Joseph and Judah not Reuben, Moses not Aaron, David not the older sons of Jesse, and so forth. The OT affirms justice for the poor, widow, the orphan, and the foreigner among you. The ultimate reversal is a Messiah who is crucified by the power structure for the sins of the people.

The Bible is not primarily a series of stories with a moral, even though there are plenty of practical lessons. Rather, it is a record of God’s intervening grace in the lives of people who don’t seek it, who don’t deserve it, who continually resist it, and who don’t appreciate it after they have been saved by it. (p. 209)

Keller may go overboard a little here, but there is no doubt that the Bible is the story of the work of God with his fully human people. The heroes in general have obvious feet of clay. David, a man after God’s own heart, failed miserably on occasion.

Justice for the poor and oppressed is at the heart of God’s story and the Christian story.  Keller is clear here.

Remarkably, then,  we can conclude that a professed Christian who is not committed to a life of generosity and justice toward the poor and marginalized is, at the very least, a living contradiction of the Gospel of Christ, the Son of God, whose Father “executes justice for the oppressed, who gives food to the hungry” (Psalm 146:7). Bauckham says, “Distortion of the biblical story into an ideology of oppression has to suppress the biblical meaning of the cross.” All of these characteristics of the biblical story make it “uniquely unsuited to being an instrument of oppression.” (p. 210)

If there is no Creator, if we are not all made in the image of God, then perhaps so-called “universal human rights” are simply another form of Western cultural imperialism.  Good for us, but no ground for imposing them on other societies in other situations.  But perhaps the framers of the Declaration of Independence (even those who were rather liberal in their belief) and Martin Luther King Jr. have it right. Inalienable human rights are universal because we are all, male, female, young, old, of all nations and races, created in the image of God.  Of course, even those who signed the declaration got it wrong in places … as many were slave holders and/or oppressive of other creeds or races. Nonetheless – the foundation is there.

What is the foundation for human rights?

Is a violation of human rights immoral or irrational?

Why are they universal (or aren’t they)?

If you wish to contact me directly you may do so at rjs4mail[at]att.net

If interested you can subscribe to a full text feed of my posts at Musings on Science and Theology.

An author writes out of experience and life story. Some may pretend to be purely scientific, objective and detached but that detachment is part of that author’s experience and story. There is no detached author as there are not detached human beings. This means all theologians at some level come to the table of theology to theologize their story.

Not long ago I was able in the same season to read biographies or autobiographies of three major theologians of the 20th Century: Bultmann, Barth and Moltmann. All three came into maturity through World War 2 and the National Socialists, Bultmann somehow able to sustain his position at Marburg, Barth sent off to Switzerland, and Moltmann, though a prison camp in the UK became a theologian. Each of them had a story to tell, each of their theology reflecting their experience in important ways, each of them also adventuring in new directions.

Whose story has reshaped your understanding of that theologian the most?

Knowing a theologian’s story does two things to our reading of their theology: (1) it makes them personal and (2) it contextualizes their theology. Hence, the desire on the part of many to know what a theologian is like at the personal level and to discover the story of that theologian.

Some stories are dramatic (Luther, Calvin, Bonhoeffer, Moltmann) and some are rather bland (names not mentioned!).

John Byron and Joel N. Lohr have provided for many of us brief biographies of a number of theologians (I use the term a bit broadly because it includes NT specialists as well) in their new book, I (Still) Believe. I suspect this will become a go-to book for brief introductions to some of the more well-known theologians of our day.

John and Joel wrote to the authors asking them to tell their story and to to tell us why they still believe, since many who enter into theological studies either adjust their faith dramatically or drop it altogether. There is no one form to each story though each was asked about faith and scholarship, and here are those whose stories are found in I (Still) Believe:

Richard Bauckham
Walter Brueggemann
Ellen F. Davis
James D.G. Dunn
Gordon D. Fee
Beverly Roberts Gaventa
John Goldingay
Donald A. Hagner
Morna D. Hooker
Edith M. Humphrey
Andrew T. Lincoln
Scot McKnight
J. Ramsey Michaels
Patrick D. Miller
R.W.L. (Walter) Moberly
Katharine Doob Sakenfeld
Phyllis Trible
Bruce K. Waltke

One of the more disheartening elements of a veteran New Testament professor is the routine encounter with younger New Testament scholars and professors who have not read those who shaped my mind when I was their age. Too many, for instance, know about the scholars — and can be quite critical of them — but have not read them. Thus, I think of A.M. Hunter, T.W. Manson, J. Jeremias, O. Michel, E.P. Sanders, as well as Rudolf Bultmann, Günther Bornkann, Oscar Cullmann, or G.B. Caird. In the 70s and 80s these scholars were those with whom one had to interact. (The same, no doubt, will be the case in 15-25 years with the giants of our day, including J.D.G. Dunn and N.T. Wright.)

One whose work influenced two whole generations of scholars, from the 1920s through the 1970s was Rudolf Bultmann, professor at Marburg all those years (including the war years). A biography of Bultmann was published not long ago and is worth reading. I blogged about the biography here.

Baylor University Press has a new book out called Beyond Bultmann: Reckoning a New Testament Theology, edited by Bruce Longenecker and Mickeal Parsons. It is a fresh assessment of Bultmann’s magisterial New Testament Theology, and gives to some important scholars of our day an assignment to read and assess Bultmann’s theology.

For instance, Kavin Rowe examines Bultmann’s understanding of the kerygma, Richard Hays studies Bultmann’s understanding of the human prior to the revelation of faith, John Barclay takes on humanity under faith, Richard Bauckham examines the dualism and soteriology in John’s theology (as understood by Bultmann), Jimmy Dunn looks at Bultmann’s development of doctrine and Larry Hurtado sketches the christology and soteriology of Bultmann. Two synthetic essays on Bultmann’s theology in context (by Angela Standhartinger) and his theological interpretation of Scripture (Francis Watson) cap off (or introduce) the volume. I didn’t mention all of the essays, but this is a taste of a mighty interesting volume.

Do people read Bultmann anymore? Should they?