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Bultmann also says in the same context that "the texts that most nearly lend themselves to such questioning are the texts of philosophy and religion and literature. But in principle all texts (like history in general) can be subjected to it" (83). Elsewhere, he takes for granted that "the appropriate question with respect to \[_sc_. interpretation of\] the Bible \-\- at least within the church \-\- is the question about human existence, which is a question I am driven to ask by the existential question about my own existence. This is a question that finally motivates questioning and interpreting historical documents generally; for, in the last analysis, the point of studying history is to become conscious from it of the possibilities for understanding human existence. Of course," Bultmann adds, "there is yet another reason why this is the question with which I especially turn to the Bible. It lies in the fact (which for any merely profane interest is accidental) that the proclamation of the church refers me to scripture as the place where I will hear something decisive about my existence" (106).

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4. Therefore, existentialist interpretation, in the sense of interpretation guided by the existentialist question about the possibilities of human existence, is not simply one more way of interpreting historical documents and phenomena – -- any more than religion, understood as the primary form of life-praxis and culture through which human beings explicitly ask and seek to answer the existential question about their own existence, is simply one more form of life-praxis and culture among many others. On the contrary, existentialist interpretation is the one way of interpreting historical documents and phenomena that is appropriate to all of them, no matter what other way(s) may also be appropriate.

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6. Of course, any (present or prospective) adherent of a specific religion, and also any theologian of a specific religion, has a further reason for questioning and interpreting the normative witness of her or his religion by asking, above all, the existentialist question – -- namely, because the whole point of the normative witness of a religion is to say something (formally or substantially) decisive about the existence of its (present or prospective) adherents as well as all other human beings.

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In an earlier revision of this entry, a corrigendum ad 3 supra called for changing 'The existentialist question" with which the third statement begins to 'The existential question." Although Bultmann clearly seems to say the first, reflection discloses that he can hardly mean this. What "finally motivates all questioning and interpreting of historical documents and phenomena" (italics added) can lie only on the primary level of living understandingly, on the level of self-understanding and life-praxis. But while it is just here, on this primary level, that the existential question lies, the existentialist question lies on the secondary level of living understandingly, on the level of critical reflection and proper theory.

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As for the difference between the two questions, the existential question is exactly that – -- existential, whereas the existentialist question is intellectual. This means, among other things, I submit, that pursuing it is in effect playing a certain role, or performing a certain office. Pursuing the existential question, on the other hand, is sOlnething one does, not in any role or office, but solely and simply as a person, because one is a human being.

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