Was Jesus Really Obedient unto Death?

Abstract

In this essay I want to take off from a few sentences in Rudolf Bultmann's lecture, entitled in its English translation Primitive Christian Kerygma and the Historical Jesus, I delivered in response to his associates who had resumed the quest for the historical Jesus. The sentences in question occur in Section III of the lecture, in which Bultmann deals with what he deems to be abortive attempts to assimilate the activity of Jesus to the kerygma. Although he believes that certain features of Jesus' activity can be known-such as that he performed exorcisms, took up with outcasts, castigated Jewish legalism, attracted a small group of followers, and exhibited a consciousness of authority in relation to the eschatological message he preached-any effort to reconstruct a portrait ofJesus must fail, according to Bultmann, because we can know nothing about how Jesus understood his own death. Theories that he went to Jerusalem to confront people with the message of the imminent appearing of the kingdom of God, and in so doing laid his life on the line, are all only assumptions for which there is no real evidence, as the passion narratives, though primitive, are entirely kerygmatic in nature. Bultmann says: is certain is merely that he was crucified by the Romans, and thus suffered the death of a political criminal. This death can scarcely be understood as an inherent and necessary consequence of his activity; rather it took place because his activity was misconstrued as a political activity. In that case it would have been-historically speaking-a meaningless fate. We cannot tell whether or how Jesus found meaning in it. We may not veil from ourselves the possibility that he suffered a collapse.2 It is especially the last sentence that I want to examine. What does it mean to say that Jesus may have suffered a collapse ? What sort of possibility