Kerygma (from the ancient Greek word κήρυγμα kérugma) is a Greek word used in the New Testament for "proclamation" ( see Luke 4:18-19, Romans 10:14, Matthew 3:1). It is related to the Greek verb κηρύσσω kērússō, literally meaning "to cry or proclaim as a herald" and being used in the sense of "to proclaim, announce, preach". Merriam-Webster defines it as "the apostolic proclamation of salvation through Jesus Christ ". Amongst biblical scholars, the term has come to mean the core of the early church's oral tradition about Jesus.
Oral tradition
"Kerygmatic" is sometimes used to express the message of Jesus ' whole ministry, as "a proclamation addressed not to the theoretical reason, but to the hearer as a self "; as opposed to the didactic use of Scripture that seeks understanding in the light of what is taught. The meaning of the crucifixion is central to this concept.
During the mid- 20th century, when the literary genre of the New Testament gospels was under debate, scholars like C. H. Dodd and Rudolf Bultmann suggested that the gospels were of a genre unique in the ancient world. They called the genre kerygma and described it as a later development of preaching that had taken a literary form. Scholarship since then has found problems with Bultmann's theory, but in Biblical and theological discussions, the term kerygma has come to denote the irreducible essence of Christian apostolic preaching.
The ancient Christian kerygma as summarized by Dodd from Peter's speeches in the New Testament Book of Acts was:
The Age of Fulfillment has dawned, the "latter days" foretold by the prophets.
