854. I am struck by the clear convergence ...

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I am struck by the clear convergence of Bultmann's and Marxsen's ways of arguing.

Bultmann argues that the first proclaimers could understand Jesus' death as the salvation event only by first understanding his life. But, then, Marxsen argues in much the same way in explaining how the cross comes to be understood as the saving event because the significance of Jesus' entire earthly ministry is attached to the one event of his death -- interchangeably, however, with his birth, to which such significance is also attached (Gal 4:4 ff.).

Likewise, if Marxsen argues that the Christ-kerygma requires to be legitimated (namely, by the Jesus-kerygma), Bultmann evidently reasons to much the same effect by repeatedly stating that the kerygma (by which he means, of course, what Marxsen distinguishes as the Christ-kerygma) is and must be legitimated by "the Christ event of the past," the norm for such legitimation being precisely the apostolic preaching. This becomes clear, at any rate, when the following equivalences in Bultmann's use of terms are taken into account: "the Christ event of the past" = "the that of Jesus' proclamation" = "Jesus' person, its being here and now, its event, its commission, its personal address" = the event Jesus" = "Jesus the historical person" = "the Jesus of history [as a fact of the past]."

21 April 2008