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Historical science becomes a crisis for faith only by virtue of the scandal that the Christian word of proclamation is asserted to be the legitimated word of God -- namelyGod—namely, because we would like to control this uncontrollable assertion, because we claim to have criteria where, in the nature of the case, there can be no criteria.

But the same scandal is also the source of the crisis that arises from looking at things in the context of the general history of religion. To be sure, from a historical point of view, Christianity is one more relative phenomenon among others. But the scandalous Christian assertion is that a relative historical phenomenon, that this specific proclamation, is God's word. And this crisis is constant.

Incidentally, the parallel -- indeed, convergence -- is parallel—indeed, convergence—is striking between what Bultmann says here about the Christian proclamation's not at all communicating to us a historical report and what Wittgenstein says about Christianity's not being grounded on a historical truth, but issuing a call to faith.

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