Theology of the New Testament (Scribner studies in contemporary theology)

excellent read as is most of his works and requires time for reflection of what he writes...

"Few areas of academic endeavor are so in need of public debunking as biblical studies. The physicist Richard Feynman coined the term "Cargo Cult science" to refer to literary speculation that tries to steal the authority of the physical sciences by using some of their vocabulary and format. Much the same relationship holds between such enterprises as the Jesus Seminar and the methods of serious historians." (John J. Reilly) I couldnÕt agree more, but having said this, the question is still legitimate to ask, who this guy might have been, who affected the course of history in so many ways, mostly unintended no doubt, but still as a catalyst and operative agent who set events in motion? Two answers seem possible: the ÒguyÓ was the fellow who invented the tale, and if we take it from there we look perhaps at a person known as St. John (- but I know I am at odds here with the majority of scholars, including Bultmann, who maintain that John was too late for that.) Or there was really a Jesus slouching about in bast sandals. If so, one has to admit it was one of the best kept secrets in the decades after his death. I shall leave it by that and recommend (I, of all people) a book of consummate New Testament scholarship: BultmannÕs classical ÔTheology of the New Testament.Ò BultmannÕs magisterial tome is the academic sum of a lifetime, continually revised and expanded with every new edition. What he was trying to do, was give an exposition of the teachings in the New Testament, according to their chronological order and function in the canon. It would be easy to criticize this as a rather arbitrary arrangement because of the way the ÒcanonÓ originally had been assembled and separated from contemporaneous material that sometimes even had briefly enjoyed a place in the canon itself, before some or other Church council omitted it or condemned it to the limbo of ÒhereticÓ writings. (Such as ÒThe Shepherd of Hermas,Ó or the ÒLetter of Barnabas.Ó) However Bultmann was not oblivious of the problem and quoted extensively from such sources. The premise of his book is of course that the canon took its shape the way it did for a reason and Bultmann has set out to explore and interpret this reason. But in order to do so, he also tries to establish a credible context. And this context means a gradual evolution through different stages of the Òkerygma,Ó the ÒproclamationÓ of Christ. So from a hypothetical inner circle we move on to the earliest community in Jerusalem, then to Paul, to the Hellenistic Churches in the Diasporah, then to John, and the other apostolic letters as far as they influenced ecclesiastic organization and set legal precedents for the early Church(es). Fundamentalists will be in for a disappointment: their favorite read, the Apocalypse, is mentioned only in passing. And historians will be disappointed too. Bultmann gives us a very thorough interpretation of the unfolding teaching in the New Testament, but the attentive reader has to elicit th