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From some of his discussions of the term, one might well suppose that "κοδμοςκοσμος" (or "world") for Bultmann has two main uses; : (1) its use in the Greek sense to mean "the world-all ruled throughout by divine powers"; and (2) its use in the New Testament to mean "the human world," of which what is called "this world" is the inauthentic modification, meaning "the sphere of everything that human beings think, plan, and will in their cares and wishes, in their lusts and busyness, in their pride and arrogance," and thus "the spiritual sphere by which every person is encompassed from the outset, with its judgments and prejudices, its evaluations and strivings" (GV 2: 68).

But there is at least one discussion where Bultmann recognizes yet a third use of the term, also distinct from its Greek use and characteristic of the the  Bible( cf. GV 3:2 Bible). "According to the Old Testament view," he says, "human beings stand over against the world; for them, it is, first, the sphere of their dominion to which they are appointed by God, and then, further, the world that encounters them, that brings them their destiny. Thus raised out of the world, they nonetheless belong with it over against God; the world is God's creation and they are creatures among creatures, and the world is their home precisely as creation" (203). Clearly, it is this third use of the term that is most directly clarified by Heidegger's concept of "being-in-the-world [In-der-Welt-Sein]," although "the one [das man]" obviously serves to clarify the other, second use that is prominent in the New Testament.

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