The Notebooks of Schubert Ogden

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I've objected to a formulation of Marxsen's that is, as I've put it, "dangerously elliptical" and fails to do justice to what even he himself understands by the resurrection (cf. Notebooks, 1 May 2008). Another such formulation occurs in the following statement about the authors of New Testament texts confessing, or asserting, Jesus' resurrection. Marxsen is objecting in his statement to the anachronistic way in which we deal with their texts when we infer that, because what they assert didn't happen as they say it did, it has no reality.

Die Verfasser aber gehen von einer Wirklichkeit aus. Sie sind nach Karfreitag zum Glauben an Jesus gekommen. Das stellen sie durch Veranschaulichung dar. Aber sie wollen mit dieser Veranschaulichung nichts anderes sagen aIs: Wir sind zum Glauben gekommen. Weil sie von dieser Wirklichkeit ausgehen, haben sie nun die Möglichkeit, die Veranschaulichung dieser Wirklichkeit unterschiedlich durchzuführen, ohne daß ihnen dabei ein Widerspruch empfunden wurde. Man kann eben dieselbe Wirklichkeit unterschiedlich veranschaulichen. Ich errinere dazu an das Nebeneinander der Vorstellungen von Auferstehung und Erhöhung (Die Auferstehung Jesu von Nazareth: 160).

Marxsen's point about our anachronism in dealing with such texts is well taken. But, once again, his "nichts anderes" is the offending member. Were it right, the "illocutionary load" of the authors' confession would be reduced, in effect, to expressing the expressive, "We believe." But, of course, precisely in expressing that expressive, they also assert a constantive to the effect that certain things were the case because of which (and only because of which) they have the right to express their belief as, in its way, both cognitively significant, and true.

That Marxsen himself recognizes this is clear from other formulations such as the following: " [D]as Reden von der Auferstehung Jesu [ist] ein Interpretament, das ausdrucken will: Mein Glaube hat ein Woher; und dieser Woher heißt Jesus" (145; cf. 112, where he explains "daß der Glaube ein Woher hat, das Woher aber bei Gott liegt"). Even more telling is his summary judgment about all the "Vorstellungen" whereby having come to faith is formulated: "Das Bekenntnis zur Wirklichkeit des extra nos des erfahrenen Glaubens ist die Konstante; variabel aber ist die Vorstellung, derer sich das Bekenntnis bedient" (150). What is constant, in other words, is not simply, "We have come to faith," but "The faith to which we have come has its ground in reality outside ourselves. "

15 May 2008

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