Rudolf Bultmann developed existential biblical hermeneutics, or the idea that each individual can only read and understand the bible from his or her personal existential condition, and the biblical text acquires life only if it can awaken an experience of faith in the reader. This generates a hermeneutical circle, since the reader understands the Bible from his historical present and the historical present from the Bible. Ellacuría placed himself in this hermeneutic tradition, and he gave a step further. For Ellacuría, the reader is not just an individual but a community, just like the people of Israel in the Old Testament. This means that community faith comes first, and then individual faith.