Bornkamm was a student of
Rudolf Bultmann with
Ernst Käsemann (Tübingen),
Ernst Fuchs (Marburg) and
Hans Conzelmann (Göttingen). He developed his studies in
Tübingen,
Marburg and
Göttingen. In 1934 he was appointed professor at the
University of Königsberg, but in 1937 the
Nazis withdrew his
venia legendi and he had to stop lecturing. He was a
pastor in
Münster and
Dortmund before he was forced, in 1943, to join the
Wehrmacht. From 1947 to 1949 Bornkamm was a professor at the
University of Göttingen from 1949 to 1971 and professor of
New Testament at the
University of Heidelberg. He was also a member of the Confederation of Köngener
(Bund der Köngener), a German youth organization created in 1920 out of groups of
Protestant Bible circles and disbanded by the
Nazi dictatorship in 1934. Günther Bornkamm was a proponent of the
Second Quest for the
Historical Jesus (following the
Period of "No Quest" of
Albert Schweitzer). 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), 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. 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. The work by
Ernst Käsemann is also valuable for understanding Bornkamm's work. ==Works==