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1. Clearly, Bultmann is open in principle to the Sachkritik of all Christian witness at all levels -- the task of (New Testament) theology, in his view, being precisely "to inquire back behind the different formulations [sc. of the kerygma] in order to construct, so to speak, an ideal type of the kerygma" ("Theologie als Wissenschaft": 16 [NTM: 60]).

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3. In Bultmann's view, "the kerygma today acquires its legitimation from the Christ event of the past," and because this is so "present preaching and systematic theology along with it has need of a critical control that secures its identity with the apostolic preaching -- namely, New Testament theology" (17 f. [62]). (Elsewhere, in speaking about what is meant by "appropriateness to scripture," Bultmann asserts that "the only thing at stake is identity in subject matter [die Identität in der Sache]." [NTM: 63]).

4. What Bultmann calls" an ideal type of the kerygma" is evidently closely analogous to what I speak of as "the constitutive christological assertion."

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