venerdì 4 dicembre 2009

Ogni epoca ha le sue lampadine

Man kann nicht elektrisches Licht und Radio- apparat benutzen, in Krankheitsfällen moderne medizinische und klinische Mittel in Anspruch nehmen und gleichzeitig an die Geister- und Wunderwelt des Neuen Testaments glauben.
(Rudolf Bultmann, Neues Testament und Mythologie. Das Problem der Entmythologisierung der neutestamentlichen Verkündigung, 1941)

It is historically unjustified to suppose that things unbelievable in modern Marburg could not have been experienced in ancient Palestine. (...) What is really kaum glaublich is that such a statement should have been made by a modern teacher of religion (...) who might have been expected to know something of the phenomena of ecstatic cults.
(Morton Smith, "The Origins and History of the Transfiguration Story", Union Seminar Quarterly Review 36 [1980], 39-44, p. 41)