Chapter 1
The Question of the Meaning of Christology (I)
Given that Bultmann has become a representative figure in what Alister McGrath refers to as a âdisengagement with historyâ in The Making of Modern German Christology (originally published in 1994), this disengagement is the methodological heart of Bultmannâs demythologization project. What arises from this disengagement is a de-historicization of what it means to Christologyâthrough Bultmann, the question of the meaning of Christology is detached from historicization through an existentialist interpretation applied to the theologizing of the New Testament. In the wake of a âcollapseâ in the quest for the historical Jesus proclaimed by Schweitzer, Gerd Theissen and Annette Merz, in Der historische Jesus: Ein Lehrbuch (1996), translated as the Historical Jesus: A Comprehensive Guide in 1998, assert that âthe scepticism provoked by these insights was partly absorbed and partly intensified programmatically by [the] theological motivesâ of Bultmann. To this end, as a consequence of Bultmann, Theissen and Merz write:
Here, Theissen and Merz highlight the difference between what âthe questâ was up to Bultmann and how the ânew questâ comports itself in a trajectory moving beyond Bultmann. In this, there is also a differenceâof both theological and philosophical consequenceâin what question is posed towards and what meaning is made in Christology, so that how Bultmann engages in Christological reflection becomes a fundamentally different Christological reflection for âthe circle of Bultmann pupils.â
Two of these âBultmann pupilsâ that are foundational to what the question of the meaning of Christology becomes are: Ernst KĂ€semann and GĂŒnther Bornkammâfor KĂ€semann and Bornkamm, Theissen and Merz find that âthe quest for pre-Easter support for the kerygma of Christ is independent of whether Jesus used [C]hristological titles.â Theissen and Merz suggest that âthis claim is implicit in [Jesusâ] conduct and his proclamation.â This is, of course, part and parcel of a Christological reflection, though the conclusions KĂ€semann and Bornkamm reach are calibrated differently theologically and, by extension, philosophically. In one sense, Theissen and Merz view KĂ€semannâs Christological reflection âas Jesusâ criticism of the Law, which puts in question the foundations of all ancient religion, [as] a âcall of freedom.ââ In another sense, Theissen and Merz view Bornkammâs Christological reflection âas the immediacy of Jesus by which he is distinguished from the apocalyptic and casuistry of his environment.â Together, KĂ€semann and Bornkamm contribute to a specific post-Bultmannian approach to the question of the meaning of Christology as a theological starting point that stands contextually closest to Bultmann and become, then, two essential voices in what it means to do Christology.
Ernst KĂ€semann
As Bultmannâs doctoral student at Marburg, Ernst KĂ€semann (1906â98), who was âfrom the very beginning [the] most independent of all of Bultmannâs studentsââhaving completed his dissertation in 1931 on Pauline ecclesiology entitled âLeib und Leib Christiâ translated as âBody and Christâs Bodyâ (eventually published in 1937), with his habilitation thesis completed in 1939 on the Epistle to the Hebrews (translated as The Wandering People of God in 1984)âinitiated what eventually became known as a second quest for the historical Jesus in 1951 with KĂ€semannâs inaugural lecture as professor of New Testament at the University of Göttingen. In 1953, as Gregory W. Dawes notes, KĂ€semann delivered the lecture to a âreunion of former students of the Marburg theological faculty.â This lecture was subsequently published in 1954 as âDas Problem des historischen Jesusâ or âThe Problem of the Historical Jesusâ (appearing in Exegetische Versuche und Besinnungen, published in 1960, selectively collected in Essays on New Testament Themes in 1964)âKĂ€semannâs position differed from Bultmannâs, in the sense that Bultmann emphasized a deeply theological interpretation of the New Testament over a historical one, while KĂ€semann maintained a historical interpretation, believing that the texts of the New Testament provide historical information from which a historical Jesus can be meaningfully constructed.
What resulted in KĂ€semannâs stance on the meaningfulness of the historical Jesus over and against Bultmannâs was a ânew questâ for the historical Jesus, as Witherington acknowledges. Essentially, to Dawesâ point, KĂ€semann is âresponsible for re-opening the question.â Though that question, as that which undergirds a ânew quest,â as KĂ€semann envisions it, owes its conceptualization to Bultmannâs influences on KĂ€semann, the manner with which KĂ€semann approaches and articulates the question of the meaning of Chr...