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Contemporary Christian proclamation is faced with the question whether, when it demands faith from men and women, it expects them to acknowledge this mythical world picture from the past. If this is impossible, it has to face the question whether the New Testament proclamation has a truth that is independent of the mythical world picture, in which case it would be the task of theology to demythologize the Christian proclamation.

— Rudolf Bultmann New Testament and Mythology and Other Basic Writings (1941)

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More quotes by Rudolf Bultmann

Myth does not want to be interpreted in cosmological terms but in anthropological terms—or, better, in existentialist terms.

New Testament and Mythology and Other Basic Writings (1941)

By no means are we at the mercy of those who doubt or deny that Jesus ever lived.

To de-mythologize is to deny that the message of Scripture and of the Church is bound to an ancient worldview which is obsolete.

Christian life is not realized in developing the personality or in shaping human community and somehow changing the world but in turning away from the world and becoming free of it.

New Testament and Mythology and Other Basic Writings (1941)

The mythology of the New Testament, also, is not to be questioned with respect to the content of its objectifying representations but with respect to the understanding of existence that expresses itself in them.

New Testament and Mythology and Other Basic Writings (1941)

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Havelock Ellis

Christianity offers reasons for not fearing death or the universe, and in so doing it fails to teach adequately the virtue of courage.

Bertrand Russell Education and the Social Order (1932)

Christianity neither is, nor ever was, a part of the common law [this quote is referring to English Common Law].

Thomas Jefferson Vol. 1 Whether Christianity is Part of the Common Law (1764)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Rudolf Bultmann (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.