Abstract
This volume is an encyclopedia devoted to the German Protestant theologian Rudolf Bultmann. It is divided into four parts and contains 73 entries. The first part has two entries regarding the “orientation” of Bultmann and the last has nine entries regarding his legacy. These parts are quite interesting, but the larger second and third parts are far more enlightening.
The second part focuses on Bultmann’s life. There are two small sections: one on Bultmann’s place in religious tradition and the other on his interests in politics. The largest section is devoted to Bultmann’s relationships with various people. Bultmann admired the Old Testament scholar Hermann Gunkel but had mixed thoughts concerning his Marburg colleague Rudolf Otto. Alexander Heit carefully details the significant theological conflicts that Bultmann had with Karl Barth, especially regarding their different interpretations of Paul. There are several entries centered on Bultmann’s relationships with various philosophers. All of them are good but the most informative is Andreas Großmann’s essay on Bultmann and Martin Heidegger. Heidegger was not only a friend and colleague, but helped shape Bultmann’s thinking about hermeneutics, existence, and even theology. Heidegger’s Nazism offended Bultmann, but they remained friends. As an indication of his high regard for Heidegger, in 1933 Bultmann dedicated the first volume of his Glauben und Verstehen to him.
The third part covers Bultmann’s work. There are entries on Bultmann’s letters and on his sermons. Martin Bauspieß offers an interesting account of Bultmann’s entries in two major theological encyclopedias: Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart and the Theologische Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament. These include his famous and lengthy entry on Paul and the briefer one on Heidegger. Matthias Dreher offers an overview of some of the 250 book reviews that Bultmann wrote between 1908 and 1969 (183). But, the most rewarding entries are those on his theology. Hans-Peter Großhans argues that, for Bultmann, the “object of theology is God” and Christof Landmesser suggests that Bultmann’s conception of God is the “all determining reality.” However, Hans Weder notes that God cannot be conceptualized and Hartmut Rosenau quotes Bultmann’s assertion that since God is “entirely different” he is beyond human categories of understanding (152, 227, 335, 398, Glauben und Verstehen, Band I). Given God’s importance, it is curious that there is no entry devoted to Bultmann’s notion of him. There is, however, an entry on ethics, yet as Elisabeth Gräb-Schmidt acknowledges, ethics appears to be theology’s “stepchild.” Furthermore, Bultmann himself rejected the idea that Jesus had a philosophical ethics. As a member of the “History of Religion School” it would seem that he would be interested in the historical Jesus. However, as Bultmann made clear in his Jesus book, his concern was not with Jesus as a personality, but as the author of a sacred doctrine of love (Deutsche Bibliothek, 1926). Michael Theobald maintains that Bultmann describes Jesus’ three standpoints: Jesus the Prophet is furthest away from God, Jesus the Rabbi is closer, but Jesus the “bearer of words” is closest to God (266–69).
L. maintains that Paul’s theology was especially interesting for Bultmann’s own theological thinking and he points to Bultmann’s life-long concern with it (271). L. examines Bultmann’s lengthy article on Paul in the second edition of Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart and he argues that Paul’s theology helped Bultmann recognize the importance of history and faith in Christianity. L. insists that Bultmann’s interpretation of Paul remains important but allows that it has often been considered controversial. For Bultmann, faith (“Glaube”) is critically important because he believed it to be the “Archimedean Point” of Christianity. Christof Seibert suggests that in Bultmann’s understanding, faith is historical and timeless and it is a matter of trust as well as a free act of obedience (344–46). God is not “knowable,” faith is not knowledge; yet Bultmann places great worth on understanding and knowledge.
This volume prompts three questions. (1) Since there seem to be contradictions in Bultmann’s theology, why do these contributors ignore them? (2) Since Friedrich Schleiermacher and Ernst Troeltsch had views similar to Bultmann’s, why is the former reduced to sharing a brief entry with Wilhelm Dilthey and why is the latter mostly ignored? (3) Since Johannes U. Beck noted that there still is no Bultmann “collected edition,” why have these authors not insisted that there be one? (The four volumes of Glauben und Verstehen contain more than 160 writings but do not include Bultmann’s major works.) Perhaps this volume will prompt scholars to address these questions and to work on the collected edition of Bultmann’s writings. This volume is important because it provides a thorough overview of Bultmann’s theology as well as a compelling argument for considering him as being one of Germany’s most significant Protestant theologians.