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.
Subscriptions: see brill.com
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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
Taanach
(383 words)
[German Version] overlooks the Valley of Jezreel from the south. It was fortified in EB II–III and MB II and was destroyed by Thutmoses III in 1468 bce and by Shishak c. 930 bce. The cuneiform archive at Taanach (unique in Palestine) mentions Rehov, Gur, Dothan, and Yibleam; Amanhatpa (possibly Amenhotep II) complains that the city prince does not show him sufficient respect. In the Late Bronze and Early Iron periods, Taanach was a metalworking center. Prince Yašdata fought against Labʾayu of Shechem (EA 244f., 248). Settlement…
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Religion Past and Present
Tabernacle, Christian
(522 words)
[German Version]
I. History of the Term A tabernacle (Lat.
tabernaculum, “tent, hut”) is a receptacle containing the eucharistic bread and the vessel(s) holding it in Christian sacral buildings. The Vulgate uses the Latin word for the Old Testament tent of meeting and to represent the eschatological dwelling of God among mortals (Rev 21:3). In the Latin church, it became a technical term for the receptacle holding the reserved sacrament. In the Early Church, consecrated bread (Consecration) from the eucha…
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Religion Past and Present
Tabernacle, Jewish
(289 words)
[German Version] (Heb. אֹהֶל מוֹעֵד/ʾ
ōhel môʿēd, “tent of meeting [with Yahweh]”). The term embraces two conceptions of an Israelite tent sanctuary. In the non-Priestly epiphanic conception of Exod 33:7–11; Num 11:11ff.; 12:2ff.; Deut 31:14, presumably antedating P, the tent is set up outside the camp and Moses is allowed to enter it: the revelation on Sinai is ritualized. The conception of P (Pentateuch) in Exod 24:15–31:18; 35–40; Lev 8f. etc. pictures the tabernacle as a small-scale model of the S…
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Religion Past and Present
Tabernacles, Feast of (Sukkoth)
(10 words)
[German Version] Feasts and Festivals
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Religion Past and Present
Tabgha
(214 words)
[German Version] (et-Tabgha, from Gk ἑπτάπηγον/
heptápēgon, “seven springs”) is the name of the littoral area of the Sea of Galilee (Galilee, Sea of) three km southwest of Capernaum. In New Testament times used for agriculture (Jos.
Bell. III 519), from the mid-4th century on, it was associated with NT episodes (Mark 6:35–44 parr.; John 21) and Beatitudes (first attested for Egeria in Peter the Deacon,
De locis sanctis 5.2f.), probably because it was easily accessible to pilgrims; an unbroken local Jewish Christian tradition is most unlikely. By 350 ce there was already a church the…
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Religion Past and Present
Taboo
(889 words)
[German Version] The Polynesian word
tabu (Eng. taboo) – along with
mana and
totem – is one of the few words of non-European origin to have developed into a key concept of religio-ethnological terminology during the 19th century. The history of the taboo concept not only mirrors the European approach to the problem of how to understand foreign thinking, but also sheds light on the crucial importance of cultural-scientific theorization for the definition of a concept that has become problematical. The word “taboo” first became known in Europe in 1784 with the publication of …
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Religion Past and Present
Tabor, Mount
(182 words)
[German Version] mountain tapering to a high plateau (588 m) on the northeast edge of the Valley of Jezreel (Israel). Tabor appears in the Old Testament as a boundary marker between tribes (Josh 19:12, 22, 34), a military rallying point (Judg 4:6, 12, 14f.), and in the toponyms Chisloth-tabor and Aznoth-tabor (Josh 19:12, 34). A cultic significance of Tabor cannot be demonstrated from the biblical text (vague references in Ps 89:13*; Hos 5:1), archaeological evidence, or the etymology of the name…
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Religion Past and Present
Tacitus, Publius Cornelius
(671 words)
[German Version] (c. 55 – after 116 ce).
Life
and works. Tacitus was praetor (88) and quindecimvir (?), suffect consul (97), and proconsul of the province of
Asia (112/113). The biography of his father-in-law Gnaeus Julius Agricola (d. 93) combines the
laudatio funebris (Dead, Cult of the: III) with an ethnography of Britain. The ethnography of the free, i.e. non-Roman (or not yet Roman)
Germania (written around 100) draws a typecast and idealizing picture of an unspoiled primitive people and dangerous neighbor. His
Dialogus de oratoribus (written around 105) discusses the relat…
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Religion Past and Present
Tact
(303 words)
[German Version] (Ger.
Takt, Fr.
tact, Lat.
tactus, “sense of touch, feeling, influence”) denotes the practical judgment that enables the accurate application of rules in concrete cases by drawing on the totality of the determinants present in the mind as universal rules of common sense or experience, without being elevated to the level of conscious scientific clarity (I. Kant). In a moral sense, tact is sensitivity to what is right and proper given the distinctive character of a particular situation a…
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Religion Past and Present
Tafel, Johann Friedrich Immanuel
(162 words)
[German Version] (Feb 17, 1796, Sulzbach am Kocher – Aug 29, 1863, Bad Ragaz), writer and university lecturer in Tübingen. Raised in an environment of Württemberg Pietism, he soon became a disciple of E. Swedenborg. After studying theology at Tübingen, he began translating Swedenborg’s works for the German public – after 1824 as university librarian. He considered Swedenborg to have been sent by God and to have been vouchsafed enlightenment by Christ himself. He challenged the authority of the chu…
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Religion Past and Present
Taffin, Jean
(176 words)
[German Version] (1529/1530, Doornik [Tournai] – Jul 15, 1602, Amsterdam), Reformed theologian. After studying with Calvin and T. Beza in Geneva from 1558 to 1560, he served churches in Aachen, Metz, Antwerp, Heidelberg, and (at the end of his life) in Amsterdam. In 1571 he played a leading role at the Dutch synod in Emden; from 1574 to 1583 he served as court chaplain to William of Orange. With his emphasis on the inward experience of grace and his ¶ description of the Christian life as penance, Taffin was one of the pioneers of the Nadere Reformatie. Christoph Strohm Bibliography Works inclu…
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Religion Past and Present
Tagore, Rabīndranāth
(268 words)
[German Version] (May 6, 1861, Calcutta – Aug 7, 1941, Shantiniketan, West Bengal), author, philosopher, educator, and social reformer. Tagore was the first Asian to win the Nobel Prize for literature (1913). He founded his school, Santiniketan (Abode of Peace), in 1901, and his Visva-Bharati (World University) in 1921; both were premised on the integration of the arts and spirituality into rural reconstruction, social values, and East-West understanding. A polymath, Tagore corresponded extensivel…
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Religion Past and Present
Taiping
(1,345 words)
[German Version]
I. Taoism Taiping signifies “Great Peace,” “General Prosperity,” and “Universal Harmony.” The
Book of Universal Harmony (
Taiping Jing) reflects the ideology of the militarily organized Taiping movement (2nd cent. ce) under the leadership of the self-appointed “generals” Zhang ¶ Jue (or Zhang Jiao; d. 184) and his two brothers. The deified Lao Tsu (Taishang Laojun) is said to have revealed the original title
Taiping qingling shu to a certain Gan (or Yu) Ji in Shandong (Langye). The wars of the late Han Dynasty, the hardships suffered by the popu…
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Religion Past and Present
Tait, Archibald Campbell
(167 words)
[German Version] (Dec 21, 1811, Edinburgh – Dec 3, 1882, Episcopal Place at Addington), archbishop of Canterbury. Educated at Edinburgh and Oxford, Tait converted to the Church of England in 1830. Three years later, he was appointed tutor at Balliol College, Oxford. Though sympathetic to the aims of the Oxford Movement, in 1841 he joined in the public protest against
Tract 90 (J.H. Newman). Talented and widely admired, Tait quickly advanced through a succession of clerical appointments, including headmaster of Rugby (1842, succeeding T. Arnold); bishop of…
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Religion Past and Present
Taiwan
(1,149 words)
[German Version]
I. General Facts Also known by its Portuguese name Formosa, the island of Taiwan lies some 160 km to the east of the Chinese province of Fujian in the Pacific Ocean and covers an area of roughly 36,000 km2 (Asia, see map). From the 16th century onward, it became the target of increasing immigration from the nearby Chinese mainland, in the course of which the native Malayo-Polynesian population was gradually driven out of the fertile plains and into the central mountains. Following shortlived colonization attempts by t…
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Religion Past and Present
Taizé
(413 words)
[German Version] The Communauté de Taizé in Burgundy was founded at Easter in 1949 by the Swiss Reformed theologian Roger Schutz (Frère Roger; 1915–2005), when seven brothers took vows to live a common life based on traditional monastic rules (celibacy, community of goods, obedience). Schutz had already bought a small, derelict house in Burgundian Taizé, in which people fleeing political and racial persecution found refuge. Beginning in 1944, he lived with a few friends in a committed spiritual co…
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Religion Past and Present