The Notebooks of Schubert Ogden

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Although I see no reason to doubt my conclusion that Bultmann's view and mine are not very far apart on the matter of what is to count as the primary authority of the Christian community, I do recognize that certain things he says and means might possibly be understood to tell against it.

Thus, for example, as clear as it is that he appeals to "the apostolic preaching" as distinct from the NT, it is less clear that he uses "apostle" in the strict sense in which I should use it. Indeed, he seems to use it, for the most part, in something like the sense in which Paul uses it, if not, in fact, more broadly than that, i.e., to refer, not to an original and originating witness, but simply to anyone called out and appointed -- more or less specially or selectively -- to establish the gospel (see, e.g., New Testament and Mythology and Other Basic Writings: 40 ff.).

This seems all the more significant, then, in view of the fact that, while Bultmann does indeed speak of "the first witnesses," as well as "the first disciples" and "the first proclaimers" (as I point out in Doing Theology Today: 240), he does so in at least one place only to add parenthetically, "Paul included" (Review of E. Hirsch, Die Auferstehungsgeschichten und der christliche Glaube: 245). Clearly, if Paul is included in what he means by "the first witnesses," the sense of the phrase, as he uses it, is broader than the sense I give it.

7 February 2000

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