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1. Bultmann fails to recognize that there were two earliest communtiescommunities, not one. (To my direct question whether he himself hadn't once operated on the same assumption, Marxsen answered, "Yes, of course!")

Of course, I have never argued that one should simply take Bultmann's position. In fact, I have allowed, perhaps even more strongly than Marxsen himself is willing to do, that Bultmann has sometimes expressed his position in ways that hardly do justice to it. The fact remains, however, that at the crucial point-whether Christian faith has itsprimal source in the kerygma or in Jesus-Bultmann is on the side of those who say Jesus, notwithstanding his insistence that the primary norm of Christian faith, witness, and theology is not the witness of Jesus, or Jesus himself, but rather the witness of the apostles.

2. Bultmann focuses attention almost exclusively on Jesus' proclamation, instead of recognizing that it is the total activity of Jesus-what he thought (=Verhalten), said (=Reden), and did (=Tun) -- with which one must reckon in understanding the beginning of christology. (In this connection, Marxsen appealed to a review of Bultmann's Jesus by E. Lohmeyer, who pointed out that the book is a Jesus-book without Jesus. In retrospect, it seems to me that Marxsen has probably allowed himself to think pretty much the same thing, despite the fact that, as I told him, Bultmann's use of "proclamation," when he speaks of it, is nothing like as narrow as Lohmeyer's criticism appears to imply.)

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Of course, I have never argued that one should simply take Bultmann's position. In fact, I have allowed, perhaps even more strongly than Marxsen himself is willing to do, that Bultmann has sometimes expressed his position in ways that hardly do justice to it. The fact remains, however, that at the crucial point-whether Christian faith has its primal source in the kerygma or in Jesus-Bultmann is on the side of those who say Jesus, notwithstanding his insistence that the primary norm of Christian faith, witness, and theology is not the witness of Jesus, or Jesus himself, but rather the witness of the apostles.

Marxsen's own position is not essentially different, although he maintains-in my opinion, rightly-that there was not one form, but two forms, of early Christian witness and that the relatively earlier of these two forms is properly the primary norm of Christian faith, witness, and theology. Why? Simply because implicit christology represents "first statements/, while explicit christology consists in "second statements/, first statements being related to second as "foundation" (=Grundlage, Basis) is related to "consequence" (=Konsequenz).