Page History

"That the Bible, like other historical documents, not only _shows_ me a possibility for understanding my existence, which I can decide either to accept or to reject, but beyond this becomes a word addressed to me personally that gives me existence -- this is a possibility that I cannot presuppose and reckon
(j\!) with as apnethodicaf\Erinciple ofjinterpretation a principle of methodical interpretation. That it is ever actualized is -- isinin traditional terminology -- the work of the Holy Spirit" ("Zum Problem der Entmythologisierung" \[1952\], _Kerygma und Mythos_ 2: 191 f.; dcf. _New Testament and Mythology and Other Basic Writings_: 106).

"Understanding in the first instance can only be understanding of the question of decision addressed to me as the interpreter. The yes \[to this question\], by virtue of which understanding would become faith and the interpretation itself would become preaching, can be understood only as the gift of the Holy Spirit. But I do not have to reflect on this in methodological reflection. I cannot appear for my exegetical lectures in the consciousness, or feeling the responsibility, that I have to produce as a believer. Nor can I offer my interpretation as _direct_ preaching. Rather, I can endeavor only to clarify the question of decision posed in the text as a question put to both me and my hearers, and so my interpretation (if it more or less succeeds) becomes _indirect_ preaching. . . .

.
"Translation does not answer the question, 'How do I say it to my child?' but rather consists in asking, 'How do I say it to myself?' or, better,
2
 'How do I hear it myself?' I can understand the New Testament as a word that encounters me only if I understand it as addressed to my existence, and in so understanding it, I already translate it. . . . rOlf\[O\]f course, _believing_ understanding and translation are not identical. \[But\] understanding the question of decision directed to me in the text and translation are identical. Nevertheless, the believing yes is . . . _donum Spiritus Sancti_" (Letter to Karl Barth \[11-15 November 1952L1952\], _Karl Barth-Rudolf Bultmann Briefwechsel_: 173 f.).

"Existential encounter with the text can lead to a yes as well as to a no, to confessing faith as well as to express unfaith, because in the text the exegete encounters a claim, or is offered a self-understanding that can be accepted (as a gift) or rejected, and therefore has to make a decision. Even in the case of a no, however, the understanding is legitimate, because it is a genuine answer to the question of the text and, being an existential decision, is not to be refuted by argument" (,,1st"Ist voraussetzungslose Exegese moglichmöglich?" \[1957\], _Glauben und Verstehen_ 3: 149; dcf. _New Testament and Mythology and Other Basic Writings_: 152).

"The statement that 'instead of wanting to tmderstand the text within the framework of its supposedly normative (\!) self-understanding, \[one should want\] to understand oneself as one finds oneself understood in the text' misses the point. "For 'to understand the text within the framework (better: tmderunder the question) of its self-understanding' is precisely the way to understand oneself as one finds oneself understood in the text. Naturally, the only thing I can strive for methodically is an existentialist interpretation; what the _Divinus Spiritus_ works is an existential understanding. . . . Insofar as the latter presupposes or is a peculiar movement of the will, it can only be received -- if it is understood radically as self-surrender -- as the gift of the Holy Spirit" (Letter to Karl Barth \[11-15 November 1952\]: 189 f.).