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It seems to me that Bultmann could hardly consistently disagree with Marxsen that post-Easter (Christ-)kerygma can be said to represent Jesus appropriately only if it withstands critical examination. He would indeed insist that it cannot be properly examined by empirical-historical inquiry concerning facts in the life of Jesus, because whether or not a representation of Jesus' significance for faith is true cannot be determined by empiricalhistorical empirical-historical inquiry into such facts. But he could hardly deny that it is quite properly examined to determine whether or not it can claim support in the immediate witness to Jesus by the first disciples, which is to say, in the earliest Jesus-kerygma whose subject is the pre-Easter Jesus. (Consider, for example, Bultmann's procedure in "Jesus und Paulus.")

On the other hand, to allow, as Bultmann surely would, that the postEasterpost-Easter (Christ-)kerygma has to withstand critical examination by the preEasterpre-Easter (Jesus-)kerygma is in no way to allow that it has to withstand critical examination by the pre-Easter kerygma of Jesus himself, although just this is evidently the claim of those who insist, against Bultmann, that a new quest (not of the earliest \[Jesus-\] kerygma, but) of the historical Jesus is theologically necessary.

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