Theologians such as Bultmann, Tillich, and Macquarrie have been the quickest to recognize the affinities between the Heideggerian analysis of Dasein and the Pauline description of anthropos, but instead of demonstrating how Heidegger borrowed extensively from the New Testament, they have used Heidegger's analysis of Dasein to formulate a new existentialist Christian theology.

Bultmann, in defense of his use of Heidegger's existential analysis in his New Testament theology, seems to understand that Heidegger is borrowing directly from the New Testament: “Above all, Heidegger's existentialist analysis of the ontological structure of being [Dasein] would seem to be no more than a secularized, philosophical version of the New Testament.” More often, however, Bultmann fully accepts Heidegger's claim that his ontological description of Dasein must precede any “ontic” claims made by theology about the nature of man in order for these claims to be conceptually understood.

But surely this is a reversal of the proper way to assess the relationship. Heidegger read and studied the Bible and Christian theology before he wrote Being and Time. Hans Jonas formulates the relationship correctly in his essay “Heidegger and Theology”: