The name of Rudolf Bultmann would feature prominent-ly on any list of the influential figures in twentieth-century theology even if such a list were compiled by someone disagreeing radically with most of his conclusions.

Without a doubt, Robert C. Roberts asserts, part of the reason for Bultmann's overwhelming influence is the under-lying consistency of his work. There is an extraordinary systematic unity to Bultmann's theological and philosophical writings. With that in view, Roberts seeks, in this penetrating new study, to explore that thought as a whole. The meta-physical terrain on which the structure of Bultmann's the-ology is built is the division of reality into "world" and "existence."

If such a reading of human existence seems a bit far afield from what an ordinary reading of the New Testament yields, it is because (Bultmann would contend) the first-century authors and readers clung to a mythological world-view we can no longer accept. Bultmann expends consider-able hermeneutical ingenuity in the effort to demonstrate that his understanding is in fact what the New Testament really means