Please, help me understand one Bultmann's thought

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I’m reading it in “Jerome Biblical Commentary” and I don’t understand this thought at all. Who could explain it to me ?
“Finally, the pastoral aspect of demythologizing becomes clear when one realizes that the elimination of the unnecessary stumbling block of mythology helps Bultmann to expose the real stumbling block, the offense of the Gospel which proclaims that the eschatological act of God “for us and for our salvation” took place in the life and death of Jesus Christ”
 
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No, it’s the first, old edition. There is written about Bultmann’s demythologizing
 
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I can’t understand why Bultmann (and the authors?) thought that eschatological act of God “for us and for our salvation”, which took place in the life and death of Jesus, was the offense of the Gospel
 
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Alex8 said:
I’m reading it in “Jerome Biblical Commentary” and I don’t understand this thought at all. Who could explain it to me ?
“Finally, the pastoral aspect of demythologizing becomes clear when one realizes that the elimination of the unnecessary stumbling block of mythology helps Bultmann to expose the real stumbling block, the offense of the Gospel which proclaims that the eschatological act of God “for us and for our salvation” took place in the life and death of Jesus Christ”
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Well, from some reading I did on Bultmann about his book Jesus Christ and Mythology he thinks there is no future coming of Christ, rather it is an orthodox myth, and that the eschatological act of God is that Jesus Christ came historically and is encountered by each individual.
  • pastoral means “concerning or appropriate to the giving of spiritual guidance.”
  • demythologizing means “reinterpret (a subject or text) so that it is free of mythical or heroic elements.”
  • eschatological means “relating to death, judgment, and the final destiny of the soul and of humankind.”
 
I finally understood. I can’t thank you enough.
The last question is that this is a little unclear why the Catholic commentary marks it as helpful because the redemption is a dogma
 
Alex8 said:
I finally understood. I can’t thank you enough.
The last question is that this is a little unclear why the Catholic commentary marks it as helpful because the redemption is a dogma
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You are welcome, it is difficult reading. I think helpful in the sense that redemption is not dependent upon a future second coming at the Parousia, but already occurred, but then becomes manifest in each person’s encounter.

Modern Catholic Dictionary (Fr. John Hardon), for redemption states:
“His Passion was a kind of price or ransom that paid the cost of freeing humanity from both obligations. Christ rendered satisfaction, not by giving money, but by spending what was of the highest value. He gave himself, and therefore his Passion is called humanity’s Redemption.”.
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Yes, I agree. This message seemed to me very unclear in the beginning. Thank you
 
Bultmann is trying to rid Christianity of “unnecessary” things like miracles, Divine intervention, even revelation in general, so we can focus on ethics… if I recall correctly.
 
“Demythologization” is a specifically Bultmannian concept. Bultmann thought that the supernatural events related in the Gospels were not compatible with modern science and the current state of knowledge.

So he proposed to understand them in their existential significance (what is their meaning for my own life?).

He thought that doing so helped reconnect with the true “scandal of the Gospel” (as Paul said, the cross of Christ is scandal for the Jews and folly for the Greeks) by not getting sidetracked in miraculous events.

Paradoxically, for Bultmann, the “mythical” events he saw in the Gospels were a form of rationalization - a trying to put into understandable concepts things that belonged to the divine and were far above human understanding. So part of the problem he had with “myth” is that he thought it was a means of objectifying God, of putting Him within our reach.
Alex8 said:
I can’t understand why Bultmann (and the authors?) thought that eschatological act of God “for us and for our salvation”, which took place in the life and death of Jesus, was the offense of the Gospel
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Because that’s something so enormous that it was shocking indeed in the first century, and Bultmann thought that our getting used to the miraculous in the Gospels had desensitized us to the shock and scandal a God dying for us represents.
 
Thank you for these explanations. I feel I need to grow to such a topic. It’s rather difficult for me
 
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Bultmann is difficult, don’t worry !

He is also more nuanced and subtle (and interesting) than he’s often made up to be.

That said, his line of thought is definitely not orthodox.
 
The fact that he isn’t helping you is a clue that he isn’t helpful. You are cleverer than you think!
 
Alex8 said:
Thank you for these explanations. I feel I need to grow to such a topic. It’s rather difficult for me
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Yes, this is what Bultmann was talking about.

Christ is a stumbling block to the Jews and folly to the Greeks, but is the power and wisdom of God. If Christ is not someone that challenges us, then it is not Christ we are meeting. Miracles and clever ideas can distract us from Christ instead of leading us to him.

The aim is always to lead us to Christ, who challenges us to grow toward him.
 
OddBird said:
He is also more nuanced and subtle (and interesting) than he’s often made up to be.
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Would it be true to say that Bultmann saw himself as, in a certain way, a conservative theologian, seeking to restore faith in the Gospel that had been undermined by the preceding generation of liberal theologians such as Harnack?
 
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I’m not that good of a Bultmann student myself, but from what I’ve read, it would not be far off the mark. I’m not sure he would have seen himself as countering Harnack’s influence though – he was very much a historical critical exegete in his own way, assuming the method’s consequences to the point where he thought that the “Jesus of history” was very different from the Gospels’ “Christ of faith”.

He certainly saw himself as a theologian trying to rekindle interest in the Gospel and help people reconnect with the Christian faith – not unlike some liberal theologians, like Tillich, with whom he shared a few common traits and a reciprocal esteem.
 
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