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I have long found it somewhat strange and forced to speak, as Bultmann does, of "presupposing" the hermeneutical rules or the method(s) of historical-critical research. Rules and methods as such are not what is presupposed; rather, rules are followed or methods are employed, given something else that is presupposed – -- namely, (1) that being precisely a text, the text has to be interpreted as such, whatever one's aim or objective in interpreting it; and (2) that the appropriate aim or objective in interpreting this text is this aim or objective rather than that, or that aim or objective rather than some other.

Having presupposed that the text is precisely that, a text, one naturally follows the hermeneutical rules or employs both the historical- and literary-critical methods necessary for understanding and/or critically interpreting it as such. Many and various as these rules and methods may be, they are all ways of answering the first question to be put to any text in understanding and/or critically interpreting it – -- namely, "What does the text say?" Unless and until one has determined what is actually said by the text, one cannot possibly understand and/or critically interpret what the text means.

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