Search

/Contemporary philosophy is divided into two main schools of ^ * thought, the analytic and the existentialist. Analysis could be described as a method of gaining an understanding of the ultimate structure of facts by means of a clarification of the meaning of language. Existentialism, on the other hand, could be described as a method of gaining an understanding of the meaning of being by means of a clarification of the structure of human existence. Like other philosophies these two are potential theologies and become theologies in effect when their respective methods are used to gain an understanding of faith. John Wisdom has attempted an analytic approach to the understanding of faith in his essay, "Gods," and Rudolf Bultmann has proposed an existentialist approach in his essay, "New Testament and Mythology." Both ask about the difference between 1 Because I will be concerned with John Wisdom's version of analysis, I have based the description on his essay, "Is Analysis a Useful Method in Philosophy?", to be found in his Philosophy and Psycho-Analysis (Oxford, 1957) pp. 16-35. 2 What I have attempted to describe here is the method that Heidegger propounds in the preface to Sein und Zeit. It is Heidegger's philosophy and particularly this book of his that Bultmann uses to build up his theology, although Bultmann seems to concern himself only with the clarification of the structure of human existence and not with the investigation of the meaning of being. 8 The essay has been reprinted often enough to have acquired a certain notoriety. It appeared first in Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 45 (1944-45) pp. 185-206. It is also to be found in Wisdom, op. cit., pp. 149-68; in Jarrett and McMurrin (ed.), Contemporary Philosophy (New York, 1954) pp. 239-52; and in A. Flew (ed.), Logic and Language (First Series; Oxford, 1955) pp. 187-206. Both for convenience and precision I will cite the essay by section numbers instead of page numbers. 4 The essay is to be found in H. Bartsch (ed.), Kerygma und Mythos 1 (HamburgVolksdorf, 1948) pp. 15-48, followed with criticism by other Protestant theologians and replies by Bultmann. Of interest also are the criticisms by Karl Barth in 2 (1952) and by Karl Jaspers in 3 (1957). The debate between Bultmann and Jaspers has been translated under the title Myth and Christianity (New York, 1958). Bultmann has been criticized from a Catholic point of view by L. Malevez, Le message chretien et le mythe (Brussels, 1954), by R. Marie, Bultmann et Vinterpretation du Nouveau Testament (Paris, 1956), and others. There is a special advantage, though, in considering Bultmann's position alongside that of someone like John Wisdom, as we shall do here, because the Entmythologisierung issue involves not only the problems that center around the notion of "existence" but also those that center around the notion of "fact" and "verification." I will cite Bultmann's

IN RECENT years several leading exegetes have claimed that the author of Luke-Acts (who will be designated as Luke in this study) has failed to give direct soteriological value to the death of Jesus. Wilckens lists among the lacunae in Luke's theological conception his failure to make clear the salvific character of the death of Jesus: Luke-Acts proclaims the fact that salvation has been granted in the sending of Jesus, but does not explain the how or why of this salvation. Conzelmann maintains that in Luke's account of the Passion there is no "direct soteriological significance drawn from Jesus' suffering or death." Kasemann calls the cross of Jesus in Lucan theology a misunderstanding of the Jews which had to be corrected by God's intervention in the Resurrection. Some decades ago Dodd offered an explanation of this phenomenon. In searching for the primitive schema of apostolic preaching, he found that the Jerusalem kerygma failed to assert that Christ died for our sins, an assertion frequent in Paul and seemingly even pre-Pauline. He concluded that the Jerusalem kerygma of Acts was pre-Pauline at least in this aspect, allowing the possibility that the notion may have been developed by the "school of Stephen and Philip, with which Paul appears to have been in touch." Yet other authors have pointed out that such an assertion is missing throughout Luke-Acts. Hence Dodd's reasoning leads to the conclusion that Luke's soteriology must be judged pre-Pauline in the aspect we are considering, which explains why the death of Jesus lacks any soteriological value. These are serious accusations to bring against the author of the twovolume work which makes up more than one fourth of the NT, an author whom recent studies have consistently shown to be both a careful writer and profound theologian. Hence it is the object of this study to investigate the pertinent texts of Luke-Acts to answer the question: How according to Luke is man saved, and what relation does the death of Jesus have to this salvation?