UNDERSTANDING THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY IN THE BIBLICAL THEOLOGY OF RUDOLF BULTMANN

Annotation

The article conciders the philosophical and theological concept of history in the works of Rudolf Bultmann. Acting within the framework of demythologization and existential interpretation of the biblical message, the thinker consistently examines biblical texts, reconstructing the philosophy of history contained in them by referring to current data from historical science, philosophy, religious studies, and biblical studies. R. Bultmann demonstrates the impossibility of genuine historicism within the pagan tradition, arguing that it is the biblical authors, creatively reworking mythological plots, who become the true creators of the principle of historicism. The early Christian Church, being the successor to the Old Testament tradition, shifts the perspective from the people as a whole, focusing on individual genuine existence in the context of faith in Christ. Through faith, man opens up to the future and frees himself from his past. Eschatology for the theologian is a moment of crisis that everyone faces. R. Bultmann understands eschatological events as an existential judgment of man over himself, which is based on the idea of the eternally present coming of Jesus Christ, who after His death is present in the kerygma. History and eschatology are combined in early Christianity as the principle of “already and not yet”, when, on the one hand, history is thought to be completed, and, on the other hand, man remains in the actual history, directed by God to the final completion.

Keywords

Rudolf Bultmann, biblical theology, history, philosophy of history, historicism, existential interpretation, Bible

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