O caso Lüdemann está rendendo…
A defesa de Jim West é uma crítica do autoritarismo presente na Igreja alemã à qual pertence Lüdemann, comparando o caso de David Friedrich Strauss (1808-1874), punido quando lecionava na Universidade de Zurique, Suíça, com o de Gerd Lüdemann, afastado, no final do século XX, da cadeira de Novo Testamento da Faculdade de Teologia da Universidade de Göttingen, Alemanha.
Cito dois pequenos trechos da defesa de Jim West:
A very long time ago a gifted young scholar wrote an impressive, indeed, a groundbreaking work. It was a historical investigation of the Life of Jesus and it’s author was David Friedrich Strauss. Strauss was invited, as a result of that work, to teach at the University of Zurich. When conservative reactionaries got wind of the impending appointment they raised such a ruckus that the governing board (to their eternal shame so far as I am concerned), withdrew the call and pentioned young Strauss off. What had begun with the promise of a very fine academic appointment ended in bitter disillusionment. Strauss’s fury was unleashed against the religionists who, according to him, had ruined his life. He spent the rest of his life, a bitter and disappointed man, doing his best to undermine the facile historical ideology of his enemies (…)Fast forward, now, to the 20th century and change locations from Switzerland to Germany. Precisely the same sort of situation arose when Lüdemann published his work on the Historical Jesus. The same fundamentalists (with different faces but the same spirits) objected so loudly, so forcefully, so maliciously, that the esteemed people on the Board of Governors (or whatever they are in the German University system) buckled to the pressure and denied Gerd his rightful place. To their eternal shame, I might add [Obs.: o blog Biblical Theology, de Jim West, foi descontinuado].
Já Mark Goodacre começa seu post de hoje assim:
I have just received this response from Gerd Lüdemann to my comments on his press release (The Christmas Stories are Pious Fairy Tales) and Gerd asks if I would place this in my blog, which I am of course happy to do. I am knee-deep in grading (that’s what they call “marking” here) at the moment but I am looking forward to commenting later. The message below is as I received it from Prof. Lüdemann, with my original blog post in lower case (but combining parts of the press release and my comments) and Prof. Lüdemann’s responses in upper case.