Myth, History, and the Resurrection in German Protestant Theology: Rudolf Bultmann on Myth, History, and the Resurrection

The Christian faith stands or falls with the confession that Jesus Christ is risen. While that assertion itself is perhaps uncontroversial, precisely what this confession means has been a subject of profound significance and immense controversy for centuries. Central to this discussion is the role of myth and history in the biblical witness and in the church’s theological engagement with the confession that Jesus Christ is risen. This book traces key trajectories of German Protestant discussions of myth, history, and the resurrection from its earliest critical analysis in the work of Hermann Samuel Reimarus and David Friedrich Strauss to contemporary appraisals by Eberhard Jüngel and Ingolf Ulrich Dalferth. At the center of this discussion stands Rudolf Bultmann, whose work on the resurrection sparked fierce debates that left a lasting impact on Protestant theology in Germany and beyond. The questions raised by these theologians continue to resonate in contemporary discussions of the nature and status of biblical texts, the integrity and truth of the Christian confession, and the meaning and significance of the resurrection of Jesus Christ for Christian faith and life at the beginning of the twenty-first century.