Encyclopedia of Christianity Online
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Subject: Religious Studies
Editors: Erwin Fahlbusch, Jan Milič Lochman, John Mbiti, Jaroslav Pelikan and Lukas Vischer
The Encyclopedia of Christianity Online describes modern-day Christian beliefs and communities in the context of 2000 years of apostolic tradition and Christian history. Based on the third, revised edition of the critically acclaimed German work Evangelisches Kirchenlexikon. The Encyclopedia of Christianity Online includes all 5 volumes of the print edition of 1999-2008 which has become a standard reference work for the study of Christianity past and present. Comprehensive, reflecting the highest standards in scholarship yet intended for a wide range of readers, the The Encyclopedia of Christianity Online also looks outward beyond Christianity, considering other world religions and philosophies as it paints the overall religious and socio-cultural picture in which the Christianity finds itself.
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The Encyclopedia of Christianity Online describes modern-day Christian beliefs and communities in the context of 2000 years of apostolic tradition and Christian history. Based on the third, revised edition of the critically acclaimed German work Evangelisches Kirchenlexikon. The Encyclopedia of Christianity Online includes all 5 volumes of the print edition of 1999-2008 which has become a standard reference work for the study of Christianity past and present. Comprehensive, reflecting the highest standards in scholarship yet intended for a wide range of readers, the The Encyclopedia of Christianity Online also looks outward beyond Christianity, considering other world religions and philosophies as it paints the overall religious and socio-cultural picture in which the Christianity finds itself.
Subscriptions: see brill.com
Santiago Cult
(1,279 words)
1. James’s Life and Burial According to the NT, James the Elder, son of Zebedee, was a member of the intimate circle of apostles (see Matt. 10:1–4; 17:1–8; 26:36–37; Mark 5:35–42; 13:3). In about the year 44 he was beheaded by Herod Agrippa I (41–44; Acts 12:2). Although early witnesses allude to James’s mission activity, especially in Palestine, they provide no concrete information about where he was buried. Only in the seventh century, through the
Breviarum apostolorum, a Latin version of the Greco-Byzantine apocryphal work
Acts of the Apostles, was James associated with missiona…
Saudi Arabia
(979 words)
1. History and Features From 1745 to 1818, and then from 1824 to 1891, the Saʿūd family controlled two Wahhabi states on the Arabian Peninsula. Then from 1902 onward, with the capture of Riyadh, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz Ibn Saʿūd (1880–1953) set up what became the modern Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932. The state took on its present-day size with further conquests up to 1934. Three special features mark Saudi Arabia. First, by means of the conquest of Hejaz in 1924/25, it came to include Mecca and Medina, the two most important sanctuaries of Islam, so that the king…
Saul
(361 words)
The primary traditions concerning Saul, the first king of Israel (Monarchy in Israel), consist of stories concerning his call (1 Sam. 9:1–10:16), his victory over the Ammonites and elevation to the throne (chap. 11), and his battles against the Philistines (13:2–14:46). The Deuteronomists later reworked and considerably expanded these traditions (1 Samuel 8; 10:17–27; 12; 15; Deuteronomistic History). The kingship of Saul, who came from the tribe of Benjamin (9:1–2), represented only a brief episode toward the end of the 11th century (the exact chronology is uncertain). The introd…
Scandinavian Missions
(1,592 words)
1. History “Scandinavian” (or “Nordic”) is the term for the historically and culturally related northern European countries of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. In each of these countries, approximately 80 to 90 percent of the people belong, nominally at least, to the Lutheran churches, which since the Reformation have had close relations with the state (Lutheran Churches 2; Church and State).
1.1. Early Missions In the Middle Ages missions were occasionally attempted to the Sami (or Lapps), a people with a different language and culture who live…
Schleiermacher, Friedrich Daniel Ernst
(917 words)
Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834), the “church father of the 19th century,” was a Protestant theologian, pastor, and philosopher. Born in Breslau (modern Wrocław) as the eldest son of a Prussian military chaplain, Schleiermacher—who was gifted even as a child—was significantly influenced by the Moravian Brethren. He attended their school in Niesky beginning in 1783, then their theological seminary in Barby beginning in 1785. Doubts about traditional dogma, however, aggravated an early alienat…
Schleiermacher’s Theology
(8,164 words)
1. Schleiermacher and the Birth of Modern Protestant Theology Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher (1768–1834) was a thinker of seminal importance in the history of modern Protestant theology. Although many 18th-century figures addressed the implications of the Enlightenment for Christian thought, Schleiermacher was the first major post-Enlightenment theologian. He set about rethinking and reconstructing both the method and the content of Christian theology in response to the various challenges posed by…
Scholasticism
(5,425 words)
1. Basic Features 1.1.
Term The term “Scholasticism” designates a distinctive approach to the whole intellectual endeavor of human beings, an approach that took shape in the urban schools and (later) universities of the West beginning in the 11th century. Scholasticism is thus an original and characteristic product of medieval Western culture. By the time the major universities of the West (esp. Paris, Oxford, and Bologna) were well established in the 13th century, all of university education was und…
Scholium
(103 words)
A scholium (Gk.
scholion, “comment”) is a brief explanatory comment on an individual text. With glosses and interpretation scholia early came into use as a hermeneutical tool in literary history (Hermeneutics). In the Christian field we find them in exegesis of the Bible and the Fathers (Patristics; Catena), for example, in the
Hypotyposes of Clement of Alexandria (d. ca. 215) up until the biblical expositions of Martin Luther (1483–1546; Luther’s Theology). Bernd T. DrösslerBibliography H. Erbse and D. Fehling, “Scholien,”
LAW
2723–26 A. Gudemann, “Scholien,”
PW
(2d ser.)…
School and Church
(1,223 words)
The relationship between school and church varies a great deal, depending on history, national settings, and religious traditions. 1. History In the past in Europe, church and school were traditionally closely related. For a long time the church had charge of the school, particularly monastic, cathedral, and parish schools (Monastery 4.1; Religious Orders and Congregations 2.3). City and private schools that arose in the later Middle Ages, however, were also still under church control. M. Luther (1483–1546; Luther’…
Schweitzer, Albert
(855 words)
Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) was a Protestant theologian, a physician, and an organist. After studying theology and philosophy in Strasbourg, Berlin, and Paris, Schweitzer became an assistant pastor in Strasbourg in 1899, a private lecturer in NT in 1902, and also director of the theological seminary in 1903. Theology, philosophy, and music were equally influential in shaping his life and thought. Schweitzer’s revolutionary contribution to theology was his continuation of J. Weiss’s understanding of “consistent eschatology,” combined with a comprehensiv…
Science and Theology
(5,257 words)
This article covers the historical and conceptual relationships between Western science and Christian thought, especially theology. As we shall see, these relationships have moved in both directions, with theology providing foundational assumptions for certain key scientists, and scientific discoveries challenging theology to revisit and revise its conclusions on several matters relating to a Christian understanding of the world, especially the doctrine of creation. 1. Historical Approaches Differing theories of the relationship between theology and science ha…
Scotism
(5,216 words)
1. Duns Scotus It is generally thought that the Franciscan John Duns Scotus (ca. 1265–1308) was born either in December 1265 or sometime before March 1266 in the small Scottish village of Duns, just north of the border from England. Scotus was ordained in Northampton in 1291, indicating that he was probably studying in Oxford at this time. He remained in Oxford until perhaps 1301, during which time he began the composition of his questions on various logical and metaphysical works of Aristotle (Aristotelian…
Scribes
(397 words)
The principle that Judaism demanded a life of studying the Torah and that the Torah must be applied to community life (J. Neusner) found concrete expression among professional scribes. Their prototype was Ezra (ca. 450 b.c.), who was “a scribe skilled in the law of Moses that the Lord the God of Israel had given” (Ezra 7:6). The scribes were expositors who made the directions of the Torah binding in various situations in daily life, teachers who passed on the contents and methods of their exposition to their students, and jurists who played a practical part in administering the law (Sir. 38:2…
Scriptural Proof
(1,932 words)
“Scriptural proof” means a theological procedure by which scriptural passages are adduced or used in order to substantiate, verify, defend, or give authority to dogmatic or ethical assertions. 1. Judaism The basis for scriptural proof lies within Judaism: neither Greek culture nor the ancient Near East offers parallels. The dominant position of Scripture can be seen in a variety of Jewish traditions. Entire books could be rewritten in a way that brought them ¶ “up to date” (so Genesis and Exodus in
Jubilees, Chronicles within the OT itself), and biblical genres were imitated …
Seafarers’ Mission
(4,944 words)
1. Settings Seafarers’ mission is a workplace ministry with people of the sea and their families, including commercial fishers, seafarers, port and oil-rig workers, harbor officials, dock workers, truckers, and shipboard vendors, including prostitutes. The 1,900 seafarers’ missions throughout the world, both professional and voluntary, occur in three kinds of locales:
on shore, with chapel, social center, and transportation services to local parishes to aid spiritual development, as well as resources for meeting physical fitness and cultural need…