1136. If Marxsen argues that there's no point ...

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If Marxsen argues that there's no point in asking what had to have happened in order for the disciples to have been able to see Jesus alive after his death, since the (Easter- or Christ-) kerygma gives no answer to this question, surely, the same is true vis-à-vis the Jesus-kerygma (NTBK: 102). What we experience through this kerygma, even as through the Easter- or Christ-kerygma, is only how one interpreted the faith and experience out of which the Jesus-kerygma arose, not what had to have happened first in order for the disciples to have had this faith and experience.

The point is that Marxsen can sustain his claim that the faith awakened by Jesus before Good Friday and Easter is the same as the faith in Jesus originating with Good Friday and Easter only if the ground of the first faith is the same as the ground of the second. But this it can be only if talk of Jesus' own faith no more belongs to the ground, as distinct from the interpretation, of the first faith than talk of Jesus' resurrection belongs to the ground, as distinct from the interpretation, of the second faith.

Significantly, when Marxsen himself indicates how his claim ought properly to be supported, he calls for a comparison of the two salvations brought respectively by the one kerygma and the other, and argues against comparing the two Saviors, except thus indirectly (cf. espec. "Die urchristlichen Kerygmata und das Ereignis Jesus von Nazareth": 52-5 ). See note after the next.

What could talk of Jesus' own faith in face of the Jesus-kerygma's call for a decision possibly be if not an attempt to evade the decision of faith -- just as talk of the resurrection as an event could be nothing other than this in face of the Christ- or Easter-kerygma's call for decision? -- Marxsen himself is clear about the parallelism here (cf., ibid., pp. 52, 57), although, significantly, he talks about evading the call of the Jesus-kerygma by asking for the ipsissima verba Jesu,  instead of Jesus' own subjective faith (52). -- In the one case, as in the other, he speaks of "falling back into liberal theology" (57).

The Christ-kerygma asserts the identity of the risen one with the earthly one. But the theological question is whether this assertion is justified. It is if, and only if, the eschatological experience resulting from what Jesus caused to happen is the same as existing eschatologically out of faith in (the exalted) Christ. If this is, indeed, the case (but only if it is the case), the earthly Jesus and the exalted Christ are identical.

Marxsen argues that -- "faith today also comes from preaching and, where it is risked, has its certainty in itself and nowhere else." But, then, how could it have been otherwise with the faith out of which the Jesus-kerygma was formulated? In that event, however, all talk of Jesus' own faith is beside the point ("Die urchrist. Kerygmata": 60).