ABSTRACT
It is some fifty years ago that Oscar Cullmann’s book, Christus und die Zeit, appeared (1946). With the publication of an English version, the book was required reading for most of us, who found it compelling, theologically illuminating and very useful. A revised English version that chronicled the author’s debate with his critics was published in 1964. Shortly before that, James Barr argued that the meanings given to the biblical words for “time” by Cullmann and others were not really to be found in the documents in question. Cullmann’s methods were typically eisegesis rather than exegesis; and his Christ and Time revealed contemporary hope rather than past biblical belief (Barr 1962). Others pointed out the impossibility of Cullmann’s insistence on the distinctiveness of Judaism and Christianity in the ancient world relative to their mode of historical understanding (see Momigliano 1966; Press 1977; Gabba 1981).
