Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

FAITH AND THE HISTORICAL JESUS §5.3
It is important to recognize here, however, that what Bultmann was decrying
was the pointless inquiry after Jesus' personality and inner life. He was much
more confident about reaching back to the message of Jesus. Four pages later he
also says: 'Little as we know of his life and personality, we know enough of his
message to make for ourselves a consistent picture'. 37 Yet what did this mean?
Bultmann envisages the Jesus tradition as 'a series of layers', Hellenistic and
Greek, Palestinian and Aramaic, within which again 'different layers can be distinguished'.
By means of critical analysis 'an oldest layer' can be determined,
'though it can be marked off with only relative exactness'. Even then 'we have no
absolute assurance that the exact words of this oldest layer were really spoken by
Jesus', since there is the possibility of still earlier development in the tradition
'which we can no longer trace'. 38 In other words, the earliest layer, to which
Bultmann in fact traces about twenty-five sayings of Jesus (some forty-one
verses), gives us a sufficient impression of the teaching of the man who stands
behind the oldest Palestinian community which preserved that first layer. 39 And
on that understanding, Bultmann proceeded to give an impressive sketch of the
teaching of Jesus, or, as he notes some might prefer, of 'Jesus'. Of Jesus' teaching
only, it should also be noted; almost a century later, the impact of Strauss was
still being felt.
The other roadblock for any would-be questers which Bultmann's exposition
of form criticism erected was his observation that 'what the sources offer us
is first of all the message of the early Christian community'. 40 In this, of course,
he follows Wrede and Wellhausen. 41 But for Bultmann the observation applies
equally to the earlier layers of tradition. This is where the key phrase Sitz-im-
Leben ('life-setting') became crucially significant: the tradition as we have it
bears witness first and foremost to the iife-setting' which gave the tradition its
present form. It was the usefulness of the tradition to the life of the earliest
churches which gave the tradition its shape, and from that shape we can deduce
the concerns of the earliest churches more directly than any deduction we may
draw regarding Jesus' own message. What this meant in practice for Bultmann
was, first of all, the recognition that many of the sayings would have been modified
in the course of transmission. The point is that the traditions of Jesus' teaching
were preserved not for any archival value, but because of their continuing
value to the early community. And since the needs and circumstances of the earliest
churches would differ from those of Jesus, the tradition would inevitably
37. Bultmann, Jesus 12.
38. Bultmann, Jesus 13.
39. 'The Study of the Synoptic Gospels', Form Criticism (with K. Kundsin, 1934; New
York: Harper, 1962) 11-76 (here 60-63).
40. Bultmann, Jesus 12.
41. Bultmann, 'New Approach' 41-43; note Robinson's gloss in New Quest 35.
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