Page History

...

An insight that has occurred to me in connection with Marxsen's lectures and our discussions is that his assumption of two distinct early communities doesn't make all that much difference to the Bultmannian view, even though it may be as helpful as Marxsen believes it to be in accounting for the literary differences between the synoptic traditontradition, on the one hand, and the tradition represented by Paul and his school, on the other.

I say this assumption doesn't make all that much difference because, for the inner circle of Jesus's followers who accompanied him to Jerusalem and, after his crucifixion, were once again gathered together around the witness of Peter, Bultmann's hypothesis still holds just as firmly as it ever did. I say this assumption doesn't make all that much difference because, for the inner circle of Jesus's followers who accompanied him to Jerusalem and, after his crucifixion, were once again gathered together around the witness of Peter, Bultmann's hypothesis still holds just as firmly as it ever did. That is, some of those who, having made the dacison decison to "follow" Jesus, thereby at least implicitly affirmed his having been sent by God, were faced with the same decision anew by his crucifixion, and then made this decision once again with the faith of Easter. Significantly, however, their statement that God has raised Jesus from the dead is parallel to the statement (at least implied by their original decision to "follow" Jesus) that God has sent Jesus as God's final word of grace and judgment before the end-- or, in their own terms, Jesus is the Son of man.

...