demythologizev.

1950 Scot. Jrnl. Theol. 3 39 What it means..to be initiated into the Kingdom of Heaven, and to have religion ‘de-mythologised’.

1959 Observer 18 Jan. 20/7 Recently, there have been attempts to demythologise this highly popular saint [sc. St. Thérèse of Lisieux].

1962 Listener 11 Jan. 68/1 Bultmann unflinchingly demythologizes, until he reaches that inner heart of Christian belief which he identifies with the Kerygma, the gospel truth.

1969 R. Bambrough Reason, Truth & God ii. 37 There is no incompatibility between a refurbished, demythologized Homeric polytheism, a refurbished, demythologized Islam, and a refurbished, demythologized Christianity.

1955 J. Macquarrie Existentialist Theol. vii. 176 A demythologized Bible..would require to use the same obscure symbolic language..and because that language would be symbolic, it would be more accurate to speak of transmythologization than of demythologization.

1951 F. V. Filson tr. O. Cullmann Christ & Time 13 A framework, of which we must strip the account in order to get at the kernel (‘de-mythologizing’ or ‘myth-removal’).

1953 Radio Times 23 Jan. 19/2 A new word has entered into New Testament criticism since Bultmann began his exegesis: Entmythologisierung, best translated ‘demythologising’. Bultmann claims that there are many passages in the Bible, especially those about God and his dealings with man, that have the form of mythological expressions; and if they are to be intelligible in the twentieth century they must be interpreted.

1971 Nature 12 Feb. 460/1 Thus, for Roszak, science, which began as a demythologizing force, by its own logic creates new and darker mysteries.