Günther Bornkamm (8 October 1905 – 18 February 1990) was a German New Testament scholar belonging to the school of Rudolf Bultmann and a Professor of New Testament at the University of Heidelberg.
Under Adolf Hitler, he opposed the nazification of the Protestant churches and their unification into the movement of the 'German Christians'. His post-war fame as a scholar rested on his effort to separate fiction from facts in his reconstruction of Jesus' life and in his subsequent treatment of the gospel of Matthew. His brother was the ecclesiastical historian and Luther scholar Heinrich Bornkamm [de].
Günther Bornkamm was a proponent of the Second Quest for the Historical Jesus (following the Period of "No Quest" of Albert Schweitzer).[b] He suggested a tighter relationship between Jesus and the theology of the early church (in contrast to the 'First' and 'No Quest' periods ending in 1953). Numbered among his opponents, Rudolf Bultmann argued for a divorce between the two, but their approaches remain similar in many aspects.
In his book Jesus von Nazareth (1956),[c] Bornkamm expressed the profound difficulties of researching the historical Jesus and wished to produce a work that would inform not only professional theologians on the many questions, uncertainties, and findings of historical research, but also the laymen who would wish, so far as possible, to arrive at an historical understanding of the tradition about Jesus and should not be content with edifying or romantic portrayals.[4] He also stated that everyone was so familiar with the Nazarene through Christian tradition, and yet at the same time this very tradition had become strange and unintelligible to many. He affirmed:
If the journey into this often misty country is to succeed, then the first requirement is the readiness for free and frank questioning, and the renunciation of an attitude which simply seeks the confirmation of its own judgements arising from a background of belief or of unbelief.[5]
The work by Ernst Käsemann is also valuable for understanding Bornkamm's work.
Works
Bornkamm, Günther; Klaas, Walter (1951). Mythos und Evangelium. Theologische Existenz heute. Vol. 26. München: Kaiser. OCLC12630562.
——— (1960). Jesus of Nazareth (trans from Jesus von Nazareth). New York: Evanston Harper & Row. OCLC721209186. - (trans pub by Stuttgart: Europa-Verlag in 1956)
———; Barth, Gerhard; Held, Heinz Joachim (1963). Tradition and Interpretation in Matthew (trans from Überlieferung und Aulegung im Matthäusevangelim). New Testament library. Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press. ISBN9780664204532. OCLC383441.
———; Hammer, Paul Leland (1974). Early Christian experience (trans from Studien zu Antike und Urchristentum and Das Ende des Gesetzes). New Testament library. London: SCM Press. ISBN9780334003472. OCLC16236676. - (trans by Munich: Kaiser Verlag in 1963 and 1966)
———; Wolff, Hans Walter (1980). Zugang zur Bibel: eine Einführung in die Schriften des Alten und Neuen Testaments. Themen der Theologie, Bd. 7 u. 9. Stuttgart: Kreuz-Verlag. ISBN9783783106138. OCLC844919595.
^Bornkamm wrote that Schweitzer, in his classic work, The Quest of the Historical Jesus, had erected its memorial, but at the same time had delivered its funeral oration.[3]
^Published in the English translation as Jesus of Nazareth in 1960, by Hodder & Stoughton Ltd, as prepared by I. & F. McLuskey, with J. M. Robinson.
——— (1995) [1960]. Jesus of Nazareth. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Fortress Press. ISBN978-0-8006-2887-1.
Koester, Helmut (2005). Foreword. The City in the Valley: Biblical Interpretation and Urban Theology. By Georgi, Dieter. Studies in Biblical Literature. Vol. 7. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill. pp. vii–x. ISBN978-90-04-13065-4. ISSN1570-1999.
Schild, Maurice E. (2016). "Review of Rudolf Bultmann / Günther Bornkamm: Briefwechsel, 1926–1976 edited by Werner Zager". Lutheran Theological Review. 50 (1): 89–90. ISSN0024-7553.