« De la Bible à la Bible... » Pensées exégétiques en passant par De Duve

In his essay « De Jésus à Jésus en passant par Darwin », Christian de Duve, Nobel prize winner in medicine, confronts the reader with his own intellectual and « religious » personal history in three stages: starting with the Jesus of his childhood and youth, De Duve re-arrives at a newly discovered Jesus, thanks to his confrontation with Darwin. In the present contribution, these different personal phases are situated against the background of the more general evolution within the critical reading of the Bible as one of the founding documents of occidental society. As such, this article does not only aim at clarifying the degree to which De Duve – and many with him –, should be considered as a child of his time from a religious point of view. Moreover, the authors aim at indicating the way in which a rediscovery of the Bible, as De Duve’s curriculum has made clear, could continue to inspire and encourage contemporary humankind.