Myth, History, and the Resurrection in German Protestant Theology

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 Jungel 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.''Hege is one of the most able guides of this theological period on the North American scene today, and in his hands readers are treated to even-handed and theologically subtle explorations into what these thinkers found to be at stake in this most core question of Christian faith: what is the historical veracity and contemporary importance of the resurrection narratives? This book will be very useful in both classroom and research settings, and should find wide readership among those interested in issues of biblical hermeneutics, Christian treatment of myth, and the interaction of tradition and modernity in Protestantism.''--Robert Saler, Research Professor, Christian Theological Seminary, Indianapolis''In this erudite study, Brent Hege proves himself a master of modern German theology and demonstrates that the debate over myth and demythologizing is not a topic of merely historical interest but remains vital to the life of the Christian community today. His nuanced and sympathetic analysis of Rudolf Bultmann is a much-needed antidote to the flippant rejections of the great Marburg theologian’s work. Hege shows that the church that seeks to understand what it means when it proclaims the resurrection of the crucified Jesus cannot afford to ignore these questions.''--David W. Congdon, Author of The Mission of Demythologizing: Rudolf Bultmann’s Dialectical Theology''In theology, it is always difficult to tell when a past scholar has stopped being a ’contemporary theologian’ and has turned into a ’historical thinker.’ This learned and exciting book by Brent Hege makes Rudolf Bultmann look more like the first category, even though many today would place him in the second. Hege’s grasp on the implications of the doctrine of resurrection shows remarkable subtlety.''-- Derek Nelson, Stephen S. Bowen Professor of Liberal Arts Religion DepartmentBrent A. R. Hege is Instructor of Religion at Butler University in Indianapolis. He is the author of Faith at the Intersection of History and Experience: The Theology of Georg Wobbermin (2009), winner of the 2010 John Templeton Award for Theological Promise, administered by the Forschungszentrum Internationale und Interdisziplinare Theologie at the University of Heidelberg, Germany. He is a graduate of Gettysburg College, the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg, and Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, Virginia.