Scripture and God in Christianity

assumes the complete agreement of the teaching of Paul with that of Jesus. The Hellenization of
Christianity does not come in with Paul, but only after him." 280 In this way Schweitzer broke
with the tradition of Reitzenstein, Bousset, Baur, Harnack and others who gave either Hellenistic
or Jewish-Hellenistic interpretations to Paul. He argued that "the conviction that through the
death and resurrection of Jesus the proximate coming of the Messianic Kingdom with Jesus as its
ruler was assured. It was this elementary teaching which formed the burden of the discourse
when he journeyed as a missionary from place to place. To it he constantly recurs in his Letters.
With this therefore, the exposition of Paulinism must logically begin." 281
It was R. Bultmann's view of Paul which dominated the discipline in the 1950s and 1960s.
Bultmann argued that "The mythology of the New Testament is in essence that of Jewish apocalyptic
and the Gnostic redemption myths. A common feature of them both is their basic dualism,
according to which the present world and its human inhabitants are under the control of demoniac,
satanic powers, and stand in need of redemption." 282 Man alone cannot achieve redemption.
"At the very point where man can do nothing, God steps in and acts-indeed he has acted alreadyon
man's behalf." 283 That is what Paul's mysticism has emphasized. 284 "The Pauline catalogue of
the fruits of the Spirit ("love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, temperance",
Gal. 5. 22) shows how faith, by detaching man from the world, makes him capable of
fellowship in community. Now that he is delivered from anxiety and from the frustration which
comes from clinging to the tangible realities of the visible world, man is free to enjoy fellowship
with others." 285
J.K. Riches observes that Bultmann's view of Paul was attractive and its "powerful attraction
stemmed from his combination of detailed philological studies of Paul's language and thought
with a searching theological analysis. While his interpretation was deeply Lutheran in inspiration
(albeit a Luther understood as a prophet of radical human freedom), it was also worked out in
dialogue with significant contemporary attempts to make sense of human existence. Paul
emerges not as the purveyor of arcane, pre-scientific myths, but as the father of a rich tradition of
spirituality, including among its representatives Augustine (353-430), Luther, Pascal (1623-1662)
and Kierkegaard, which charts and illumines the inwardness of men's and women's existence under
God." 286 Bultmann tried to give a Pauline reading of John to show that both were the apostles
of a Christian inwardness (spirituality) that was effected by the kerygma or preaching of Christ,
the Word. Though E. Kasemann, E. P. Sanders and others have differed with him over a number
of issues their appraisals of Paul are quite favorable like those of Bultmann. 287 It may be observed
that even mystical rather than theological Paul was either misleading by himself or misunderstood
by the later generations so as to be a herald of such a change of emphasis that replaced
God with the person of Jesus the Christ. The role of Paul is still significant and can be argued
as one of the determining factors of the radical change mentioned above.
There is another significant development with regard to Pauline studies in modern times. Presently,
a good number of New Testament scholars seem to disagree with the nineteenth century
portrayal of Paul and do not see the sharp distinction and wide gap between Jesus' teachings and
those of Paul, the characteristic of nineteenth century liberal interpretation of Paul. Scholars like
J. G. Machen argue that "Paul was not regarded as an innovator with respect to Jesus by Jesus' intimate
friends. He was not regarded as an innovator even with regard to those elements in his
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