Today is the 125th anniversary of the birth of New Testament scholar Rudolf Bultmann. It is hard to think of another example of an individual who integrated as totally the attempt to address matters of Biblical studies, philosophy, theology and practice. This doesn’t necessarily mean that his attempt to do so does not also expose some of the difficulties of trying to do that. But if one thinks one should integrate one’s worldview and life as a whole in this way, then Bultmann provides an example of both the possibilities and the pitfalls.
Jim West will be featuring all sorts of posts today, about Bultmann’s writings available online (as well as in other formats), photos, his participation in the Confessing Church that spoke out against Hitler, and much more. In addition to those listed by Jim, Bultmann’s Gifford Lectures on History and Eschatology can be read on line (HT Nick Norelli). There are also a couple more interesting items in German on the Internet Archive.
What I’d like to do is ask whether it is time to revisit some key ideas in Bultmann’s New Testament scholarship. Ironically, I’ve often found Bultmann’s work on demythologizing and the communication of the Gospel in a modern context more helpful than his exegetical work. But scholarship at times leaves old theories behind in exchange for new ones because the latter are new, not because the old have been refuted. And so there are at least a couple of points at which Bultmann’s work might deserve a fresh look. Here I’ll focus on just one of them.
At a recent conference on the Mandaeans, Jorunn Jacobson Buckley suggested that the time is ripe for a revisiting of the question of the relationship between John’s Gospel and Mandaeism. Having recently been reading the Gospel of John in Syriac, I was struck by how many intersections of terminology there were: truth, living water, light. Not just the same terms in translation, but the same words in both Syriac and Mandaic. It is no wonder that an earlier generation of scholars, often more widely read on religions in general and fluent in a wider range of ancient languages, made these connections. While it remains unlikely that the Mandaeans represent a group descended from followers of John the Baptist, it is quite plausible that they have connections to the wider phenomenon of baptizing sects in that era, as well as to the Gnosticism of the period. And although our understanding of Gnosticism has been revolutionized since Bultmann’s time, the evidence now points strongly to Gnosticism having arisen independently of Christianity in a Jewish context, and this means that the question of pre-Christian Gnosticism cannot by any means be considered settled. Indeed, further investigation of the Mandaeans may have a role to play in answering some of those broader questions about Gnosticism, and I’m looking forward to being involved in that research (in ways I’ll talk about in separate posts on later occasions).
This is just one of several areas in which Bultmann’s contribution may deserve to be revisited – not that we adopt the conclusions that he and his contemporaries did, but that we take another look at some of the same questions, in light of further evidence that has come to light and research that has taken place in the intervening years.
For me, however, Bultmann remains an example of the attempt to integrate faith and scholarship, not by forcing evidence to conform with his presuppositions, but precisely by making presuppositions part of the discussion, and not shielding historical matters that are important to Christianity from the powerful and at times destructive gaze of historical criticism. Yet having experienced something powerful in Christianity, he also sought ways of mediating that experience to an era whose worldview and presuppositions could not simply be those of the early Christians (no matter how much some have pretended otherwise), and which could not simply take for granted the historicity of the Gospel narratives.
And so I offer my appreciation of Bultmann on this occasion, and recommend in particular that those who have been warned to steer clear of him to read what he wrote. Because you’ll probably find that the warnings were given not because Bultmann is obviously wrong, but on the contrary, because so much of what he says is both persuasive and powerful.
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