1921–1961

Rudolf Bultmann and the program of demythologization

Rudolf Bultmann, a leader of "form criticism," taught at Marburg from 1921 to 1951 and drew on the existentialism of his Marburg colleague Martin Heidegger. In the essay "New Testament and Mythology" (1941) he proposed a program of demythologizing the New Testament.

The program provoked debates that continued in collections of the 1950s. Critics pointed to its dependence on a single philosophical school and its neglect of the church and historical dimension of faith. At the same time, it raised the key hermeneutical question of translating the New Testament worldview into the language of the present.