A History of Christian Doctrine #3 - Online Christian Library

Liberalism and Neo-Orthodoxy
and popularized is form criticism. This approach
assumes that much of the biblical material was originally
in various oral forms, and it seeks to understand the text
by investigating these forms. Bultmann particularly
applied this method to the Gospels. The idea is that
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John did not simply sit down
and write their Gospels, but they collected various bits
and pieces of information, stories, parables, sayings,
teachings, sermons, and legends that were preserved
orally. While some of the material originally came from
the life of Jesus Himself, many of the words and deeds
that the Gospels attribute to Jesus actually came from
other sources and are not historically accurate.
To understand Christianity, then, we cannot simply
read the Gospels at face value, but we must ascertain
where the various pieces of the story came from and then
evaluate their relative significance and their purpose.
Some passages, for example, are Jewish fables or legends
that perhaps predated Christ, but the Gospel writer
appropriated them for his purpose of glorifying Christ.
We should not regard them as history, but they provide
insight as to what the early church believed.
Bultmann concluded that the Gospels are not very
reliable historically and that we can know almost nothing
about the historical Jesus. In essence, the Gospels
reflect early theology, not actual history. They reveal
what the early Christians taught about Christ, not what
really happened in Christ’s life. Thus, it is not necessary
for us to believe in the miracle accounts; we can simply
extract the truth they teach. We should focus on the
Christ of faith.
For Bultmann, then, what is important is what the
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