The Life and Contributions of Oscar Cullmann to the New Testament Studies - Essay Example

The Life and Contributions of Oscar Cullmann to the New Testament Studies Oscar Cullmann was born in 1902 in Straussburg, Germany.1 He studied Theology and Classical Philology at the Straussburg Seminary and was later accepted as an Associate Professor at Strausburg Thomasstift. In 1930, he was honored a complete Professorship of New Testament and he started to teach “Primitive Church History”. 2 In 1948, he accepted a position lecturing Theology in Paris and later Basel. 3He retired in 1972 and became a member of the Institute of France while still a prolific Theologian. Despite his being a Lutheran, he was influential in mediating between the Catholics and Lutheran over a stalemate that had existed for centuries. 4 Cullmann was among the most influential in reformed Biblical theology and his studies on the New Testament eschatology and Christology led him to suggest a position of heilsgeschichte; redemptive history over the common positions of C.H Dodd and Albert Schweitzer. Redemptive history connotes that “With the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the eschaton has already began as the presence of the congregation of glory is defined by the power of redemption….” His important contributions to the New Testament studies include titles like “The Immortality of the Soul or the Resurrection of the body?”, 5 “The Christology of the New Testament”, “Early Christian Worship”, “Salvation and History”, “Early Christian Worship” but to mention a few. In “Christ and Time”, he defended claims that New Testament only refers to time as being linear that is yesterday, today and tomorrow and that no philosophy should try and mix other forms of time not mentioned therein. This led him to write an article “The Immortality of the Soul or the Resurrection of the body?” in which he showed that the widespread attribution of “the resurrection of the soul” to primitive Christianity was plausible and that this was rather associated with Greek mythology. 6His article further attributed death to the wages of sin and as the last enemy. He presented Jesus Christ as the first born from death and proceeded to presented the death as those who sleep. This article led to a lot of controversy especially in some protestant churches but at the same time received support mainly from Adventist Churches.7 Cullmann in his book “The Christology of the New Testament” established a balance in the New Testament data regarding the life and work of Jesus Christ. 8This he achieved by remaining as faithful as possible to the New Testament depiction of Jesus Christ. This he showed through his citation of key texts which he later followed with insightful deliberations. In this book, he investigated four important aspects in Jesus’ time on earth. These included; His life on earth, His parausiac function, His glorified existence and His pre-existent state. He examines the Old Testament, late Jewish and Hellenistic semantic backgrounds regarding each of these aspects. He discusses the use of the title “Jesus” by various New Testament writers and raises questions as to whether the title was given to Jesus by Himself. Here, he carefully analyses each Christological title and paints a more coherent picture of Christ. This he achieves through his belief in the values which constitute New Testament salvation. He attempts rather successfully to answer the question that had concerned early Christians. That of “who is Jesus?”9 According to Cullmann, Jesus’ earthly life was characterized by him being given Christological titles which related to His earthly duties. These included Prophet, The Suffering Servant of God and High Priest. He attempts to explain the originality of these title through the Old Testament, late Judaism up to the New Testament. This title “Prophet” he observes, was abandoned in the New Testament because of its inability to portray redemptive purposes of His life on earth. The title “Suffering servant” portrays His redemptive work through His death and the role in the new Covenant between God and Man. “High Priest” was predominantly in the Old Testament but later became the “Messianic King” in the New Testament.10 The New Testament describes his future and eschaton function using the titles “Messiah” and “Son of Man”. Cullman explains that the New Testament describes Jesus’ future, eschatol function mainly using two title namely “Messiah” and “Son of Man”. He claims that from Judaism, the concept of Messiah represented the promise given in the Old Testament that a son of David’s line would inherit the throne and salvation to the Jews. The Son of Man came in late Judaism and represented the presence of God on earth. This term he shows is not present in some gospels who preferred to refer to Him as the Messiah. He shows how Paul succeeded in solving this problem of the relationship between the Son of Man and Adam by connecting it to a historical person; Jesus Christ. The titles “Lord” and “Savior” serve to express how the church viewed Christ. Cullman refutes claims that only Luke and Paul in the New Testament gave the title “Lord” meaning. 11He further explains that Christ’s ascension to glory and not his “coming back” is the reason for the Palestine Church to refer to Him as thus. He refutes claims to associate the millennium of the apocalypse with the period of the Church’s history because he believes that the a thousand years reign belongs chronologically to His Lordship and begins with His return. The title “Savior” applied to GOD in the Old Testament but in the New Testament it comes from Hellenistic milieus of John, 1st John, Luke and Pastorals.12 The New Testament titles for the pre- existent Christ according to Cullman are the “Logos”, “the Son of God” and “God.” The title Son of God given to Jesus in the New Testament connotes unique relationship filial relationship. In the near East, this title was used as a royal title. He argues that the New Testament use of the term originated with Christ Himself given there is insufficient literature to provide an explanation as to the reasons for the community to later refer to Him as such. He finds that Christology in the New Testament is specified by two other concept. The substitution that began with human creation, the nation of Israel, to the remnant, to the Son then Apostles, the Church, to the World and then finally to the new creation. The second concept would be that of Christ as God’s self- revelation in that God reveals Himself to human-kind through redemption on the cross. Regarding baptism, Cullman wrote a book to challenge a fellow scholar Barth who had argued in support of child baptism. In this book, Cullman states that according to the New Testament, baptism was rooted in death and resurrection of Jesus. He explains that baptism of Jesus by John represented Christ’s acceptance of the role of the suffering servant bestowed upon Him by His Father and by doing so, He would be taking upon Himself the sins of the world. This meant that He would suffer and die for His people. He claims that on two occasions in the Gospels, Jesus equates His baptism with His death. That by His death, He was baptized for all humanity once and for all and this act is independent of the decision of faith. Understanding this, would make it clear that the baptism after the Pentecost was not a repeat of that of John but was a baptism into Christ’s death and resurrection. He further argued against child baptism explaining that faith was as a result of this selfless act by Christ and not a condition for it. That baptism is the precursor of faith while faith results from man’s acceptance of the fellowship of the church.13 Cullmann is seen as a revolutionary New Testament philosopher who based his understanding of the New Testament on the context of scripture and sought to further expound on the concepts regarding the life and work of Christ. Bibliography Cullmann, Oscar, Shirley Caperton GUTHRIE, and Charles A. M. Hall. 2004. The Christology of the New Testament. (Translated by Shirley C. Guthrie and Charles A. M. Hall. Second English edition, third impression.). London: SCM Press. Cullmann, Oscar. 2005. Christ and time: the primitive Christian concept of time and history. Philadelphia: Westminster Press. Cullmann, Oscar. 2006. "Immortality of the soul and resurrection of the dead: the witness of the New Testament, being the Ingersoll lecture delivered April 26, 1955". Harvard Divinity School Bulletin. 2006:. Pokorný, Petr. 2007. The genesis of christology: foundations for a theology of the New Testament. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark Taron, Richard. 2006. An examination and evaluation of the theology of Karl Barth and Oscar Cullman on the doctrine of baptism, with particular emphsis on the question of infant baptism. Thesis (B.D.)--Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, 2006. . Read More