781. At one point Bultmann summarizes ...

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At one point Bultmann summarizes a view of the relation between philosophy and the New Testament, which is, in part, at least, his own, as follows:

"What we find in the New Testament is simply an understanding of being that is discovered for the first time and more or less clearly expressed. Veiled in the garments of mythology, it is fundamentally our natural understanding of being as it is raised to clarity by philosophy, which not only strips it of its mythology but also works over its formulation in the New Testament, correcting it and rendering it more consistent. . . . [W]hat is discovered in the New Testament is what philosophy calls 'the historicity of human existence [die Geschichtlichkeit des Daseins]" (NTMr: 21 f. ).

I can only suppose that what Bultmann refers to here as "our natural understanding of being [das natürliche Seinsverständnis des Menschen]" is identical with what he speaks of elsewhere as "the understanding of existence that is given with existence itself [das mit der Existenz selbst gegebene Existenzverständnis; cf. das mit der menschliche Existenz gegebene Existenzverständnis]" (103; 107).

27 December 2001