18 Facts About Rudolf Bultmann

Rudolf Bultmann was one of the major figures of early 20th-century biblical studies.

Rudolf Bultmann is known for his belief that the historical analysis of the New Testament is both futile and unnecessary, given that the earliest Christian literature showed little interest in specific locations.

Rudolf Bultmann relied on demythologization, an approach interpreting the mythological elements in the New Testament existentially.

Rudolf Bultmann contended that only faith in the kerygma, or proclamation, of the New Testament was necessary for Christian faith, not any particular facts regarding the historical Jesus.

Rudolf Bultmann was born on 20 August 1884 in Wiefelstede, Oldenburg, the son of Arthur Kennedy Rudolf Bultmann, a Lutheran minister.

Rudolf Bultmann did his Abitur at the Altes Gymnasium in the city of Oldenburg, and studied theology at Tubingen.

Rudolf Bultmann received his degree in 1910 from Marburg with a dissertation on the Epistles of St Paul written under the supervision of Johannes Weiss.

Rudolf Bultmann became friends with Martin Heidegger who taught at Marburg for five years.

Rudolf Bultmann was critical of Nazism from the beginning and his career between 1933 and 1941 was marked by a series of struggles with Nazis regarding their influence upon the universities and the Protestant Church.

Rudolf Bultmann particularly rejected the Aryan paragraph that disenfranchised all people racially Jewish from civic organizations and many professions including clergy, entailing defrocking any Christian clergy with Jewish ancestry.

Rudolf Bultmann stated that the Aryan paragraph was "incompatible with the essence of the Christian church", since the church made no distinction between Jew and Gentile.

Rudolf Bultmann joined the Confessing Church, a Protestant movement in Nazi Germany that arose in opposition to government-sponsored efforts to unify all Protestant churches into a single pro-Nazi Reich Church.

Rudolf Bultmann received many honors during and after his career, including honorary doctorates from many universities and elections to honorary societies.

Rudolf Bultmann thus thought of his endeavor of "demythologizing the New Testament proclamation" as fundamentally an evangelism task, clarifying the kerygma, or gospel proclamation, by stripping it of elements of the first-century "mythical world picture" that had potential to alienate modern people from Christian faith:.

Rudolf Bultmann saw theology in existential terms, and maintained that the New Testament was a radical text, worthy of understanding yet questioned in his time because of the prevailing Protestant conviction in a supernatural interpretation.

Rudolf Bultmann carried form criticism so far as to call the historical value of the gospels into serious question.

Rudolf Bultmann was an outstanding teacher, and he encouraged independence of mind among his students.

Rudolf Bultmann himself took part in these discussions along with his pupils for as long as his health permitted, later living quietly in Marburg, where he died in 1976.