Because of his saying that God-talk is possible only through man-talk, theologians often charge Rudolf Bultmann with reducing theology to anthropology. Yet some of his most stimulating work appears in his exposition of Biblical anthropology, especially the Pauline view of man. So it is generally agreed. We may take the first volume of the Theology of the New Testament by Bultmann as indicative of his interest and major contribution. There he devotes but thirty-two pages to ‘The Message of Jesus’, thirty pages to ‘The Kerygma of the Earliest Church’, and one hundred and twenty-one pages to ‘The Kerygma of the Hellenistic Church Aside from Paul’ – but (not counting three pages on ‘The Historical Position of Paul’) one hundred and sixty-three pages to the Pauline doctrine of man. He even subsumes themes such as the righteousness of God, law, grace, faith, reconciliation, the Word, the Church, and the sacraments under the catch-word ‘Man’.

Bultmann begins his specific remarks on Pauline anthropology with a discussion of sōma, usually translated ‘body’. Recognizing that the common (Bultmann says ‘naive’ and ‘popular’) meaning, ‘the physical body’, appears in a large number of instances, he nevertheless regards them as theologically unimportant.