A New York geography for the BoM

An old friend of mine, specialist in Indian languages, pointed me to this map comparison from a book by Verne Holley,  unfortunately out of print, which suggests that Joseph Smith Jr tried to write the local history during the American Antiquities of the area he grew up in.

The alignment of the names is quite fascinating; I suspect that Joseph Smith Jr must have felt like a linguistics scholar when decoding how the names had changed over time.

"Uncle" Dean Broadhurst now hosts the third edition of Holley's work from 1998, where the Spalding manuscript theory is used as the basis of the discussion that Holley pursues.

Augmented Salvation History Feedback

In my discussion with my PhD advisor WW regarding the proposed theological chapter, WW pointed out that salvation history needs to be conceptualized as an eschatological event that has a telos, but no architecture that can be described. The realization of that eschatological event is within the world and is also within the believer, and takes place in the hic et nunc. This context of edification (oikodome) however cannot be integrated into World History, though the experience of the individual is capable of criticising World History and vice versa.

I have been able to reproduce almost the entirety of that argument from the discussion of Rudolf Bultmann with his colleagues in the after-math of his Entmythologisierungsaufsatz; cf. my recent series on demythologizing (Part 1,  Reply section in Part 2, Part 6).

Bultmann famously combines crucifixion and resurrection into a single eschatological event, which is the only proper element of a salvation history. A salvation history of one event is however such a degenerate case that any potential architecture of salvation history is lost, but the telos of salvation in history remains. Because the individual encounters the risen Christ in the kerygma of the congregation, this is both in the world and private to the believer. Especially in his reply to Schumann (p.200) Bultmann emphasizes both this hic et nunc, as well as reminds the reader that the individual events do not permit objective historical verification (p.205). This in consequence means that the integration into World History will not succeed, which requires such objective historical verification.

Demythologizing Debate---Part 6: Bultmann's Reactions

This post continues our series on demythologizing by giving Bultmann, whose essay was the first part, a chance to respond to his German critics: Lohmeyer, Schniewind, Thielicke, Schumann.

Bultmann's Reaction

... it is important to remember that every interpretation is actuated by the framing of specific questions, and without this there could be no interpretation at all. Of course, these questions need not be frame explicitly or consciously, but unless they are framed the texts have nothing to say to us. (p.191).

Bultmann believes that "the question of human existence" is the right way  to frame Biblical inquiry "at any rate within the Church" (p.192). This contribution to the question is also what drives history, in Bultmann's mind.

For the ultimate purpose in the study of history is to realize consciously the possibilities it affords for the understanding of human existence. (p.192)

Though the existential setup is such that man is oriented toward God, as Bultmann reminds us with St Augustine (p.192), the tools of the exegetical [and hermeneutical, RCK] trade are profane.

Every exeget is dependent upon a terminology which has come down to him by tradition, though it is accepted uncritically and without reflection, and every traditional terminology is in one way or another dependent upon a particular philosophy. (p.193)

Bultmann is looking for an appropriate terminology, without agreeing to the philosophical answers or to the specific solutions of a philosophical system. Bultmann believes that this terminology is abstract from the contents [just as Schumann argues that the myths are capable of expressing Christian truths, RCK].

... apart from the resolve to be a human being, [that is, RCK] a person who accepts responsibility for his own Being, not a single word of Scripture is intelligible as a word with an existential relevance. (p.194)

This is an acceptable approach, because there is an anthropological constant to this process.

Discussion on this subject is possible because every existential self-understanding lies within the possibilities of human existence, and therefore every existentialist analysis based upon an existential self-understanding is generally intelligible. (p.195)

And if the acting of God is in a category different from other worldly action, how can anyone speak about it except if they are affected by it?

... if the action of God is not to be conceived as a worldly phenomenon capable of being apprehended apart from its existential reference, it can only be spoken of by speaking simultaneously of myself as the person who is existentially concerned. (p.196)

This is the reason that natural actions are dependent on the observer in their interpretation.

To every other eye than the eye of faith the action of God is hidden. Only the "natural" happening is generally visible and ascertainable. In it is accomplished the hidden act of God. (p.197)

This is not pantheism, because the identity asserted is "paradoxical", not "direct" (p.197).

In faith I can understand a thought or resolve as something which is the work of God without necessarily removing it from its place in the chain of cause and effect. (p.197)

Bultmann believes Christianity not to be a Weltanschauung, because it requires the constant receptiveness of the believer to hear what God has to say (p.198). Unlike Pantheism, God does not lose the hidden quality.

But from time to time the believer sees concrete happenings in the light of the word of grace which is addressed to him, and then faith can and ought to apprehend it as the act of God, even if its meaning is still enigmatic. (p.198)

The conception of miracles as ascertainable processes is incompatible with the hidden character of God's activity. It surrenders the acts of God to objective observation, and thus makes belief in miracles (or rather superstition) susceptible to the justifiable criticisms of science. (p.199)

To the proclamation of the word of God's grace, as found in the New Testament, man responds by faith (p.200). But that word has to have a specific structure:

It is so only when Scripture is heard as a word addressed personally to ourselves, as kerygma---i.e. when the experience consists in encounter and response to the address. That Scripture is the Word of God is something which happens only in the here and now of encounter; it is not a fact susceptible to objective proof. The Word of God is hidden in Scripture, just like any other act of his. (p.200)

Bultmann also objects to being accused of destroying eschatology (p.205). Bultmann clarifies the relationship between historical event and historical investigation as follows:

That God has acted in Jesus Christ is, however, not a fact of past history open to historical verification. That Jesus Christ is the Logos of God can never be proved by the objective investigation of the historian. (p.207)

The eschatological interpretation of Jesus Christ is not the problem; the cosmic eschatology in which the NT places it (p.208).

The eschato- || logical event, which Christ is, is consequently realized invariably and solely in concreto here and now, where the Word is proclaimed (2 Cor 6:2; Joh 5:24) and meets with faith or unbelief (2 Cor 2:15f; Joh 3:18; Joh 9:39). (pp.208f)

 Though the context of discovery for demythologizing was the scientific world view, Bultmann now sees this need as coming from faith itself.

... the restatement of mythology is a requirement of faith itself. For faith needs to be emancipated from its association with every world view expressed in objective terms, whether it be a mythical or a scientific one. (p.210) 

This is a variant of "justification by faith alone apart from the works of the Law" in the Paulo-Lutheran tradition (p.211).

Bibliographic Record

Rudolf BULTMANN, Ernst LOHMEYER, Julius SCHNIEWIND, Helmuth THIELICKE, Austin FARRER, Kerygma and Myth: A Theological Debate, edited by Hans Werner BARTSCH, translated by Reginald HORACE, New York -- Evanston (Harper and Row), 1961.

Demythologizing Debate---Part 5: Schumann

This post continues our series on demythologizing by looking to parts of Friedrich K. Schumann's rejoinder to Bultmann, whose essay was the first part, for deeper insights.

Schumann

Schumann sets out with summarizing Bultmann's argument (p.175). Schumann sees Bultmann as arguing that an interpretation of the mythical framework must come from principles inside the New Testament that avoid abandonment or subtraction of the mythology.

... the interpretation [of the mythical parts, RCK] must be derived from the New Testament itself, from the aim which led it to select just these mythological elements. Now, the aim of the New Testament is to offer an existential understanding of the message of Christ. (p.176)

In short, it [i.e. the true and authentic life, RCK] means "eschatological existence".  Such an interpretation appears to have two advantages: first, it secures the essential truth of the New Testament message, and secondly it emancipates it from myth, and particularly from the eschatology of Jewish apocalyptic and Gnosticism. [sic!] (p.177)

Schumann reminds us of Bultmann's attempt to preserve the mythical figure of the Christ as a historical figure through Jesus of Nazareth.

Thus the peculiarity of the New Testament is that it speaks in mythological language of an historical figure and of the history of || that figure. (pp.178f)

Schumann then rightfully asks,

Why is it necessary to transcend the language of history in this peculiar way ["in this particular instance", RCK]? (p.179)

The question is therefore whether the mythological language is the only possible vehicle for conveying the meaning of Jesus for salvation history, .... (p.179)

The "acutest form" of this question poses itself with respect to "the proper language for the cross and resurrection of Jesus" (p.179), as the crucifixion designates a historical event, but its significance is mythical. Bultmann's solution is to regard the crucifixion as "the eschatological event" (p.180). The problem then, according to Schumann, becomes how we know that this particular historical event is supposed to be treated in this fashion.

So in attempting to emancipate the cross from mythology we are thrown back to a similar question with regard to the resurrection. (p.180)

Bultmann then points to the "inseparable unity of the cross and resurrection" (p.180), which Schumann agrees with, but finds as merely adding "to our difficulties" (p.180), because the redemptive quality of the cross is not established through the resurrection, but is termed to be equivalent to it, and this is indicated through the way it is preached, that is "proclaimed" in Bultmann's word (p.181).

This brings Schumann directly to the problem of whether the modern system of science permits such a notion as an eschatological event (p.182), even if it is, with Bultmann, "an historical event wrought out in time and space" (quoted (p.182)). Schumann believes that Bultmann understands that this is the residual paradox of the New Testament.

... the idea of a single historical event in time and space as the judgement pronounced by God over the historical process in time and space and the radical transformation of its whole constitution is inconceivable for those who accept the modern world view, and it would be impossible to make such a notion intelligible in terms of such a view. (p.182)

Bultmann in Schumann's reconstruction accuses mythology from attempting to supply "secular proof" for something that is eschatological, i.e. immune to such proof (p.182).

Schumann then turns to key points of methodology (p.184).

Schumann is unconvinced that the fit between philosophical theories of existence and fallenness on the one side and the Christian view of this situations, which is only mediated in Christ, have enough overlap (pp.184f).

To be fallen to "nothingness" is quite different from being fallen to sin and guilt and being fallen under the wrath of God. (p.185)

Schumann is skeptical of Bultmann's optimism that a formal description of the human condition can be had independent of personal existential attitudes thereof (p.185), and is convinced at least that Heidegger did not succeed in providing such a formal description (p.185). The Bible at least, in the phrase "created in the image of God", denies that man's Being can be described independent of his relationship to God (p.186).

Schumann prefers to interpret the mythological speech, such as Jesus calling God his father, by treating it as metaphorical speech, analyzing the relation between the literal meaning and the relevant features of the relationship between Jesus and God. (p.190) [[RCK: This is very akin to Barth's God as the original father argument.]]

Bibliographic Record

Rudolf BULTMANN, Ernst LOHMEYER, Julius SCHNIEWIND, Helmuth THIELICKE, Austin FARRER, Kerygma and Myth: A Theological Debate, edited by Hans Werner BARTSCH, translated by Reginald HORACE, New York -- Evanston (Harper and Row), 1961.

Demythologizing Debate---Part 7: Farrer

This post concludes our series on demythologizing by giving Austin Farrer as an English reader the opportunity to respond to the German Debate, between Bultmann (initial essay, response) and his German critics:  Lohmeyer, Schniewind, Thielicke.

Austin Farrer

Farrar approaches the problem by cataloging the "refusals of the modern mind" (p.214), distinguishing between necessary ("sun stood physically still for Joshua"), accidental ("blind eye for imagery based on the procedures of pre-scientific agriculture"), lamentable ("atrophy of ... the sense of poetry"), factitious ("Communism, physical materialism, economic utilitarianism") (p.214).

The different refusals require different addresses (p.215): Farrer considers factitious refusal akin to a disease and suggests to work to abolish them. The response to accidental and lamentable refusal is cultivation and imparting of information. But the necessary refusal must be accepted.

If, therefore, man cannot understand a "mythical" language because they are dogmatic materialists, it is a case of factitious error, and the direct target of our attack. If because they have lost their sense for poetical expression and living metaphor, it is lamentable and we ought to sustain and augment whatever rudiments of poetic sense remain. If because the Biblical images draw on unfamiliar fields of experience, it is accidental and must be met largely by the substitution of familiar images, not (if you like to say so) by demythicization but by remythicization. But if it is because of a real conflict with the way in which any decent modern man is bound to think, then indeed it is time to talk about removing the offensive element from the Biblical story by radical translation into harmless terms. (p.215)

The biggest problem is how to deal with poetic symbols vs literal facts (p.215). Farrer argues that in the NT, the relationship is often left undecided. St Luke probably thought that Jesus' genealogy was roughly correct (p.215), while John probably did not consider his sketch of the Heavenly Jerusalem correct to the extent a vista is (p.216).

But the middle cases ... are the more typical; if we ask with Bultmann ... whether spirits good and evil were really thought to be breaths of subtle and potent air physically invading the human person, we run into a mist of ambiguities. (p.216)

Farrer thinks Bultmann is making it too easy on himself by pretending to know that "the Word never becomes flesh by making physical fact as immediately pliable to his [i.e. God's, RCK] expression as spoken symbols are" (p.216). Farrer leaves the possibility open that God could make a symbolic expression into physical fact (p.216). Farrer sides with Lohmeyer that the symbolic dereferencing of religious expressions need not terminate (p.217), because there is no literal description that can terminate the recourse (pp.216f).

The techniques of historical scholarship cannot establish that God lived in man, but only that certain things were done and certain words were said. (p.219)

[[RCK: I would say that "certain words were written" is probably the strongest one can go.]]

Farrer then goes Catholic on his readers (p.222) before pointing to an inherent need for demythologizing in Christianity, realized in prayer.

The crucifixion of the images in which God is first shown to us is a necessity of prayer because it is a necessity of life. (p.222)

Bibliographic Record

Rudolf BULTMANN, Ernst LOHMEYER, Julius SCHNIEWIND, Helmuth THIELICKE, Austin FARRER, Kerygma and Myth: A Theological Debate, edited by Hans Werner BARTSCH, translated by Reginald HORACE, New York -- Evanston (Harper and Row), 1961.