Rudolf Bultmann

This is very interesting, because I, I, I took a New Testament course in the Bible for my undergrad, 'cause we had four theology requirements, four courses, and we didn't read the Bible at all in my New Testament course.

We read Bultmann, a- and, you know, and I still don't-

What? [laughs]

I still don't even remember Bultmann.

I mean, it was, it was a blow-off class for...

I mean, all the theology courses I had were blow-off classes.

You know...

Rudolf Bultmann...

The kind of...

the nonsense that he promulgated that underlay a lot of what became sort of the milquetoast sort of Billy Graham kind of Protestantism, as well as Vatican II.

Biblical criticism was deeply influenced by this.

So, Bultmann has an entire program, which is kind of what I was trained up in, which he explicitly called demythologization, which was to empty the gospels of any miraculous content, to just reduce it to a kind of putative historical Jesus, to explain everything away.

And, you know, that of course involved reading against the grain of the gospels because the gospels are actually telling you the exact opposite of that.

But you understand he was so afraid of the power of myth and the way story could mold people towards bad as well as towards good.

Mm-hmm

Rudolf Bultmann, for example.

Right, what he does is he demythologizes the stories of, of scripture.

Mm-hmm.

For Paul, those two are one.

And the idea of Jesus' resurrection is not, like some theologians would argue, preeminent among them, perhaps the most influential New Testament scholar of the past 50, 60 years, Rudolf Bultmann, who says that the real resurrection is something that happens internally.

It happens in the life, in the belief system of the followers of Jesus, which I think to a point, Bultmann is correct.

But Paul, Paul is making a more precise case.