Jesus of Nazareth

Gunther Bornkamm, a pioneering German New Testament scholar, made significant contributions in the allied areas of form criticism and redaction criticism. As a young academic, he taught in the theological school at Bethel. In 1939 the Nazis shut the school down. After brief pastorates in Munster and Dortmund, Bornkamm joined the Germany army in 1943. Following World War II, he resumed his academic career, first at the University of Gottingen, and then (in 1949) at the University of Heidelberg, where he taught until his retirement. As a redaction critic, Bornkamm pressed upon biblical scholars the importance of reading the Gospels as entire works and grasping their theology. As he analyzed the Gospel of Matthew, he raised important form-criticism questions. In addition, he sought to grasp Matthew's distinctive theological perspective and intention. The resulting volume, Tradition and Interpretation in Matthew (1963), called attention to the actual structuring of the discourses of Jesus in Matthew that appeared to be driven by the evangelist's own perception of the church, the eschatology, the law, and Jesus himself. Bultmann insisted that Matthew was no mere transmitter of traditions about Jesus; rather, he was a theological commentator on that tradition. Bultmann's name is also associated with what has come to be known as the new quest for the historical Jesus. He agreed with his teacher Rudolf Bultmann that a comprehensive biography of Jesus was impossible. In his book, Jesus of Nazareth (1960), Bornkamm argued that the primary figure of Jesus of Nazareth is knowable through the parables that he taught, the controversies in which he engaged, and the steady progression in the narrative to its climax on the cross.