By Schubert Ogden
...
For Bultmann, as much as for Marxsen, Devenish, or me, the decisive thing about the kerygma of the earliest community was not the message that the Messiah is cOIning coming in general, or even that he is coming soon, but that this Jesus, this crucified one, is coming as the Messiah. In other words, even for the earliest community, the decision had already fallen in the past with the historical personevent Jesus. Even for them, the historical person-event Jesus was the decisive saving act of God. And this was so, as Bulhnann insists, regardless of the extent to which they were explicitly clear about it. hnplicit Inplicit in their kerygtna kerygma as kerygma was what became explicit in the kerygma-theology of Paul: the new aeon has already broken in in the historical Jesus.
28 January 2009