From a Marburg Sermon by Rudolf Bultmann 1884–1976

Rudolf Bultmann died, July 30, 1976, in Marburg, Germany, where he had served as Professor of New Testament from 1921 to 1951. Recognized everywhere as one of the most influential and controversial New Testament interpreters of our generation, he was the last in the long, distinguished line of “B” names, including Barth, Brunner, Baillie, Buber, Berdyaev, and Bonhoeffer. Identified with his existentialist principle of “demythologizing,” Bultmann sought to retain the basic core of the biblical message while separating it from its mythological wrappings. Some found this an exhilarating option between an irrational fundamentalism and an effete liberalism. While dispute over the implications of his principle continues to divide theologians, everyone acknowledges his academic scholarship, his Christian integrity, and his constructive intention. Not so well known was Bultmann the preacher, though, curiously, most of the abovenamed theologians, in contrast to today's names, were as much at home in the pulpit as in the classroom. We here reprint, in memoriam, a portion of Rudolf Bultmann's sermon based on Luke 5:1–11 (the miraculous draught of fishes), preached in Marburg, July 31, 1941, the same year in which his programmatic essay,“New Testament and Mythology,”was published. This excerpt first appeared in THEOLOGY TODAY, Vol. XVII, No. 1 (April, 1960); the full text is found in Marburger Predigten (1956), translated into English as This World and the Beyond (1960).“This passage,”we noted more than fifteen years ago,“is a lucid illustration of how Bultmann applies his own exegetical method to a passage of Scripture chosen as a text for preaching. One sees how ruthlessly honest he is, and how the criticism of the classroom is not hidden from the congregation.”