Religion Past and Present
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Subject: Religious Studies
Edited by: Hans Dieter Betz, Don S. Browning†, Bernd Janowski and Eberhard Jüngel
Religion Past and Present (RPP) Online is the online version of the updated English translation of the 4th edition of the definitive encyclopedia of religion worldwide: the peerless Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart (RGG). This great resource, now at last available in English and Online, Religion Past and Present Online continues the tradition of deep knowledge and authority relied upon by generations of scholars in religious, theological, and biblical studies. Including the latest developments in research, Religion Past and Present Online encompasses a vast range of subjects connected with religion.
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Religion Past and Present (RPP) Online is the online version of the updated English translation of the 4th edition of the definitive encyclopedia of religion worldwide: the peerless Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart (RGG). This great resource, now at last available in English and Online, Religion Past and Present Online continues the tradition of deep knowledge and authority relied upon by generations of scholars in religious, theological, and biblical studies. Including the latest developments in research, Religion Past and Present Online encompasses a vast range of subjects connected with religion.
Subscriptions: see brill.com
Testamentary Literature
(390 words)
[German Version] The term generally refers to a not very clearly defined group of Hellenistic-Jewish and early Christian pseudepigrapha (Pseudepigraphy) that describe someone’s last words to relatives, friends, or successors. Some of them bear the title “testament” (Gk διαϑήκη/
diathḗkē), such as
Testament of Job (Job, Testament of) and Testaments of the Twelve Patri-¶ archs, but not all (see Ascension of Moses). Other writings with this title (
T. Abr. [Abrahamic writings],
T. Adam, T. Isaac [Isaac, Testament of],
T. Jac., T. Sol. [Solomonic writings]) are entirely different…
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Religion Past and Present
Testament of Abraham
(8 words)
[German Version] Abrahamic Writings
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Religion Past and Present
Testament of Solomon
(8 words)
[German Version] Solomonic Writings
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Religion Past and Present
Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs
(355 words)
[German Version] (
T. 12 Patr.) is one of the so-called pseudepigraphs (Pseudepigraphy) of the Old Testament and a typical example of testamentary literature. Most probably, it was originally composed in Greek by a Christian author in the 2nd century ce. The book consists of 12 parts or “testaments” containing the last words of the 12 sons of Jacob, addressed to their sons and other relatives at the end of their lives. Each of the 12 farewell discourses has a tripartite structure. In the biographical part the patriarch tells his audie…
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Religion Past and Present
Testamentum Domini Nostri
(201 words)
[German Version] a redactional composite of an adapted apocalypse (2nd cent.?) and a church order (expanded adaptation of the Traditio apostolica), framed by a revelatory address of the risen Lord before his Ascension. It was probably written in the second half of the 5th century in a settlement of ascetics and charismatics on the coast (Syr. I 34). The work was accepted only by anti-Chalcedonian churches. The Greek original and a Sahidic translation have been lost; a Syriac translation (composed…
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Religion Past and Present
Testimonium Flavianum
(186 words)
[German Version] is the name given to the short text
Ant. XVIII 63f. in which Flavius Josephus gives an account of Jesus. It would be of great moment if Josephus’s authorship of this text could be considered undisputed, but that is hardly the case. Although the text appears in all Greek manuscripts, its authenticity has often been challenged since J.J. Scaliger (16th cent.), because it contains several expressions that sound Christian, for example “he was the anointed.” One attempt to explain this ambivalent evidence is the the-ory ¶ that the text, in whole or in part, was interpol…
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Religion Past and Present
Testimonium spiritus sancti internum
(332 words)
[German Version] The doctrine of the
testimonium was formulated by Calvin (
Inst.I 7) and included in various Reformed articles of faith (I, 3;
Confessio Gallicana 4). It means that the unimpugnable validity and authority of Scripture (Holy Scriptures) does not depend on the judgment of the church (in the form of an agreement or consensus) but on the testimony of the Spirit (Spirit/Holy Spirit). J.H. Alsted honored it as the foundation of all theology. It does not mean that the “self-evidence” of Scripture is joined by …
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Religion Past and Present
Testimony, Clergy’s Right to Withhold
(155 words)
[German Version] To protect the confidentiality required for pastoral care, especially the seal of the confessional, the procedural codes of the German courts give clergy to be interrogated as witnesses the right to refuse to give evidence (§53, para. 1, no. 1 of the criminal procedural code, §383, para. 1, no. 4 of the civil procedural code). Given its purpose, this right extends only to pastoral activity, not administrative, educational, or charitable activity. In criminal cases, it is irrelevan…
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Religion Past and Present
Testimony of Truth (NHC IX,3; TestVer)
(127 words)
[German Version] a radically Encratite Gnostic Christian homily, written roughly between 180 and 230 in Alexandria; it is extant only in a badly damaged Coptic translation of the original Greek. Its author is unknown, and it is impossible to assign it to a particular school. Its polemic – rejection of Catholic baptism, bodily resurrection, identity of the Creator and Redeemer God – is directed primarily against the Catholic Church, but also various Gnostic schools. Uwe-Karsten Plisch Bibliography Ed.: B.A. Pearson & S. Giversen, NHS 15, 1981, 101–203 A. Mahé,
Le témoignage véritable…
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Religion Past and Present
Tetrarchy
(294 words)
[German Version] rule by four emperors during the first, second, and third tetrarchies (293–311 ce). The first tetrarchy (to 305) was established by Diocletian (284) and Maximian (285), who ruled as
Augusti and in 293 adopted two
Caesares (Constantius I and Galerius) as presumptive successors and coregents with authority to act. Diocletian gave a theocratic basis for this system, which provided for the adoption of a mature successor and a change of ruler through abdication after some 20 years. He cited Jupiter as the fountainhead of the tetrarchy, with the two familial branches of the
Iov…
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Religion Past and Present
Tetzel, Johann
(206 words)
[German Version] (c. 1465, Pirna – Jul 4, 1519, Dominican house in Leipzig), OP, began his studies in Leipzig in 1482/1483, receiving his Bacc.artium in 1487. He joined the Dominicans and was made an inquisitor in 1509 (Inquisition); he also served for a time as prior of the monastery in Glogau (Głogów). He studied theology, probably in Leipzig, receiving his Bacc.theol. in 1518 and then his M.theol. From 1505 to 1510 he was subcommissioner for indulgences of the Teutonic Order. Late in 1516, he w…
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Religion Past and Present
Teutonic Order
(1,208 words)
[German Version]
I. Origins The origins of an
Ordo fratrum hospitalis sanctae Mariae Theutonicorum Ierosolymitanorum are said to date back ¶ to a hospital of Mary in Jerusalem in the first half of the 12th century. The spiritual order of knights arose in 1198/1199 from a hospital brotherhood that was set up during the Third Crusade (1189/1190) near Acre by merchants from Lübeck and Bremen. Because they were supported both by German crusaders and the Hohenstaufen, most members came from the Empire, and their estates…
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Religion Past and Present
Tewodros II
(473 words)
[German Version] (Theodorus; 1818/1820, Q wārā, Ethiopia – Apr 13, 1868, Maqdalā, Ethiopia), emperor (
aṣe) of Ethiopia from 1855 to 1868). His mother Wayzaro Atteṭāgab and his father
daǧǧāzmāč̣ Hayla Māryām named him Kasa Haylu. After a Christian upbringing and a period as a
shifta (“outlaw”), he became a soldier under Ras Ali Alula. In 1845 he married Tawābač Ali (died 1858), a granddaughter of Empress Manan (1840–1853), and attained mastery over Q wārā. Military victories and additional marriages (in 1860 to Etēge Ṭēru Warq [Ṭerunaš], who died in 1868) enabled T…
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Religion Past and Present
Text
(1,617 words)
[German Version]
I. Literary Studies A text is a sequence of sentences or other linguistic utterances that can be considered as a unit. It may be oral or written. The term
text derives from Latin
texere, “weave,” and its associated nouns
textum and
textus. The metaphor of weaving, already used by Cicero and Quintilian with reference to linguistic phenomena, has had ongoing influence, down to present-day attempts to define the “textuality” of texts. In earlier usage, preserved in the tradition of philology, a text is an existing original …
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Religion Past and Present
Text Criticism of the Bible
(3,783 words)
[German Version]
I. Old Testament The aim of text criticism in general is to determine the original wording of a text that no longer survives in its original author copy but only in various late scribal copies. Text criticism compares the copies (called witnesses) to distinguish inaccurately copied passages (called readings) from accurately copied passages. What makes the Old Testament a special case is that most of its writings never had an original; they were never completed and published by a sing…
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Religion Past and Present
Textile Art
(535 words)
[German Version] (from Lat.
textilis, “woven, knitted”) comprises items produced by interlacing, entwining, linking, or weaving threads or yarn; such articles are used for clothing and high quality interior decoration. The raw materials have various origins: animals (wool, silk), plants (cotton, flax, jute, hemp), and since the 20th century industry (synthetic fibers). Braiding is the alternate interlacing of strands running in the same ¶ direction; in knitting the parallel strands are joined by stitches. In weaving two perpendicular groups of strands are cr…
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Religion Past and Present