Death in the Christian Message: Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Pauline Apocalyptic, and ‘Daily Dying’ in the Late 1930s

Abstract

In a series of wartime lecture notes on New Testament concepts, Dietrich Bonhoeffer drew an important distinction in ‘death’ between (i) the universal and Adamic death that comes ‘from outside’, and (ii) the faithful, cruciform death ‘from within’. His pastoral attention clearly is to the ambivalent status of death post resurrectionem and the nature of its relationship to the concrete life of the believer . The purpose of this article is twofold: first, to consider the plausibility of an ‘apocalyptic’ reading of this distinction, drawing critical attention to the resemblances and conflicts between Bonhoeffer and other interpreters of Paul regarding the identity of death as an active and hostile ruler nevertheless defeated by Christ. Second, and more novelly, it suggests that Bonhoeffer might contribute to contemporary apocalyptic discourse a vision of the believer's life as the ground upon which Christ's victory over death is heralded anew.