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According to Bultmann, among other ways in which "the objective of interpretation" can be given is "by an interest in history as the sphere of life in which human existence takes place, in which we acquire and develop our possibilities, and in which, by reflecting on these possibilities, we each come to an understanding of ourselves and our own possibilities. In other words, the objective [sc. of interpretation] can be given by the question about human existence as one's own existence." A few pages later in the same essay, it is evidently to just such an interpretation that Bultmann refers when he speaks of "the kind of understanding to which Schleiennacher Schleiermacher and Dilthey orient their hermeneutical theory and which can be said to be understanding of historical phenomena in the ultimate and highest sense, namely, the interpretation that questions texts about the possibilities of human existence as one's own" (New Testament and Mythology: 83, 85 f.).

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 This is a question that finally motivates questioning and interpreting historical documents generally; for, in the last analysis, the point of studying history is to become conscious from it of the possibilities for understanding human existence.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).

Assuming that Bultrnann Bultmann is essentially right in what he says in these statements, I infer the essential correctness of the following statements of my own:

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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 something 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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