Kerygma And Myth: A Theological Debate [Demythologyzing the Gospels]

9780061300806

Plot

Bultmann's 1941 essay "New Testament and Mythology" famously begins, "The cosmology of the New Testament is essentially mythical in character. The world is viewed as a three-storied structure, with the earth in the centre, the heaven above, and the underworld beneath. Heaven is the abode of God and celestial beings--the angels. The underworld is hell, the place of torment. Even the earth is more than the scene of natural, everyday events ... It is the scene of the supernatural activity of God and his angels on the one hand, and of Satan and his demons on the other. These supernatural forces intervene in the course of nature and in all that men think and will and do. Miracles are by no means rare... (The) end will come very soon, and will take the form of a cosmic catastrophe. It will be inaugurated by the `woes' of the last time. Then the Judge will come from heaven, the dead will rise, the last judgment will take place, and men will enter into eternal salvation or damnation."

He then asks, "Can Christian preaching expect modern man to accept the mythical view of the world as true? To do so would be both senseless and impossible. It would be senseless, because there is nothing specifically Christian in the mythical view of the world as such. It is simply the cosmology of a pre-scientific age." He argues that "An Existentialist interpretation is the only solution," and outlines a program for "demythologizing the New Testament."

His essay has five critical appraisals (including one by Helmut Thielicke), followed by responses by Bultmann. In the essay, "Bultmann replies to his critics," he states, "The Bible not only shows me, like other historical documents, a possible way of understanding my own existence, a way which I am free to accept or reject: more than that, it assumes the shape of a word which addresses me personally." He adds, "Our radical attempt to demythologize the New Testament is in fact a perfect parallel to St. Paul's and Luther's doctrine of justification by faith alone apart from the works of the Law."

Bultmann, much in the same manner as Levinas (but well ahead of his time), tells us that the self is confronted by both: a historical situation and text of existential importance. For Levinas, the text was the Torah and Talmud. For Bultmann, the text is exclusively the New Testament, and especially the gospel narratives (with a preference for John).
And both Levinas and Bultmann addressed the problem of a “kerygma-of-saying” that was enclosed in an “enclosure-of-said”. Bultmann calls this the “enclosure-of-myth”. The “myth-of-the-said” that tries to enclose kerygma is composed primarily of Jewish apocalyptic and Greek Gnosticism. We need to extract the kerygma from this inauthentic enclosure and acquire the existential significance of New Testament narrative in its originary proclamation-state.