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
Upadhyaya, Brahmabandhab
(325 words)
[German Version] (real name Bhavani Charan Banerjee; Feb 11, 1861, Khanyan, Bengal – Oct 27, 1907, Calcutta [Kolkata]). Upadhyaya’s father, a Brahmin, was a police inspector in British service. Upadhyaya attended English schools and colleges as well as a traditional Sanskrit school. He became familiar with Christianity through his uncle, the Protestant pastor Kalicharan Banerjee (1847–1907) and the Brāhmo Samāj, which he joined in 1887. He worked as a teacher and journalist, publishing his own per…
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Religion Past and Present
Upaniṣads
(353 words)
[German Version] Upaniṣads, generic term for Late Vedic texts, some dating from the pre-Buddhist period. Considered as an independent corpus, the Upaniṣads constitute the latest literary stratum of the Vedic revelation (Śruti; see also Vedas, Vedic and Brahmanic religion), hence Vedānta, “conclusion of the Veda,” later interpreted as the “ultimate objective of the Veda.” The term
upa-ni-ṣad has connotations of hidden cosmic relationships and secret meetings regarding them. Historical-critical studies characterize the texts as compilations, redactio…
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Religion Past and Present
Uppsala
(761 words)
[German Version]
I. City and Bishopric With a population of 140,454 in 2010, Uppsala is the capital of the Swedish province of Uppland. The city’s environs provide evidence of early settlement (tombs from the Iron Age and the Viking era, along with rune stones. Old Uppsala (Gamla Uppsala) was situated near the Fyris, four kilometers from the modern city; it was an important center of Norse religion – Adam of Bremen describes the remains of its pagan temple. In the 12th century, a church was establishe…
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Religion Past and Present
Ur
(418 words)
[German Version] city in southern Babylonia, Sum. Uri, Akkad. Ur(um), Old Testament Ur (of the Chaldees; Gen 11:28, 31; 15:7; Neh 9:7); today it is buried within Tell al-Muqayyar (Iraq). It was explored archaeologically by Charles Leonard Woolley from 1922 to 1934. There is evidence of settlement since the Ubaid period (5th mill. bce), but Ur probably did not achieve major importance until the 3rd millennium. For the period prior to 2000 bce, the Sumerian King List cites three royal dynasties centered in Ur that exercised supraregional power. Excavations of the cent…
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Religion Past and Present
Urbach, Ephraim Elimelech
(217 words)
[German Version] (May 26, 1912, Wloclawec, Poland – Jul 2, 1991, Jerusalem), one of the most influential scholars in Jewish studies in the second half of the 20th century. Urbach studied at Breslau Rabbinical Seminary and the Universities of Breslau (Wrocław) and Rome. He lived in Jerusalem from 1938; he served as professor of Talmud at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem from 1953. In 1974 he was elected president of the Israeli Academy of Arts and Sciences of the World Union of Jewish Studies. In…
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Religion Past and Present
Urban II, Pope
(298 words)
[German Version] (Mar 12, 1088 – Jul 29, 1099; Odo of Châtillon-sur-Mame, born c. 1035) studied in Reims with Bruno the Carthusian; he was appointed archdeacon in Reims, prior of Cluny, and cardinal bishop of Ostia. In 1084/1085 he served as papal legate in Germany and was elected pope in 1088 in Terracina. He guided the papacy out of its crisis following the death of Gregory VII and ensured the historic victory of Gregory’s ecclesiastical reforms, which he advanced decisively, although he was una…
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Religion Past and Present
Urban-Industrial Mission
(678 words)
[German Version] The urban-industrial mission program arose in industrial cities and conurbations after World War II, initially in Europe and North America. It built on the work of the Protestant labor movement in the 19th and 20th centuries, involving itself in the tensions of the industrial world and the workplace in order to support dependent industrial workers in their fight for human dignity and a voice in management. The “view from below” opened a perspective that had previously been closed …
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Religion Past and Present
Urbanization
(515 words)
[German Version] (from Lat.
urbs, “city”) involves two processes: a physical increase in the proportion of city-dwellers among the total population, in other words a change in the settlement pattern of a country, and urbanization in a deeper sense, a change of mentality and way of life, a change in a country’s culture. Urban life presupposes that the population engaged in agriculture produces more food than it consumes. An initial surge of urbanization in Central Europe took place because of a technological revolution in agriculture in the 11th an…
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Religion Past and Present
Urban Rural Mission (URM)
(250 words)
[German Version] Rural Mission was an outgrowth of the Rural Agricultural Mission; it was on the agenda of the ecumenical movement in 1968, when the fourth assembly of the World Council of Churches (WCC) in Uppsala voted to support its member churches in rapidly changing rural societies through cooperative structures and educational programs.
Rural was understood not just in an agrarian sense but also as
marginalized, excluded from the urban centers of political power (Consultation of the Urban Industrial Mission Advisory Group of the WCC in Kyoto, 1970). In the years that followed,
urb…
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Religion Past and Present
Urban VIII, Pope
(310 words)
[German Version] (Aug 6, 1623 – Jul 29, 1644; Maffeo Barberini, born Apr 5, 1568, Florence). After studying at the Collegium Romanum, he received his Dr.iur.utr. from Pisa in 1589 and began his curial career. In 1589 he was appointed referendary of both Signatures, in 1592 governor of Fano, in 1601 papal legate in Paris, in 1604 nuncio in Paris, in 1606 cardinal, between 1608 and 1617 bishop of Spoleto, between 1611 and 1614 legate in Bologna, and in 1617 prefect of the Segnatura di Giustizia. As …
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Religion Past and Present
Urim and Thummim
(319 words)
[German Version] (םימִּתֻּ/םירִוּא), a pair of Hebrew words still without etymological or semasiological explanation, denoting objects usually appearing in passages bearing on the paraphernalia and function of the Levitical priests. According to Exod 28:30 (cf. Lev 8:8), the Urim and Thummim were to be kept in a repository forming part of vestments of the high priest Aaron (probably a kind of pectoral or breastpiece) and worn “on his heart.” P (Pentateuch) may have understood them as symbolic objects (gems?) used by the high priest (I), especially since
Urim may be an allusion to …
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Religion Past and Present
Urlsperger
(449 words)
[German Version]
1. Samuel (Aug 31, 1685, Kirchheim unter Teck – Apr 20, 1772, Augsburg). After studying theology at Tübingen (M.A. in 1705, consistorial examination in 1707), in 1708 he set out on several years of educational travel (with ducal support) throughout Germany (where he visited A.H. Francke in Halle), Holland, and England. In 1713 he was appointed pastor in Stetten in the Rems Valley; in 1714 he was appointed court chaplain and consistorial councilor in Ludwigsburg. He was suspended in …
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Religion Past and Present
Urner, Hans
(219 words)
[German Version] (May 21, 1901, Breslau [Wrocław] – Nov 5, 1986, Berlin) was appointed pastor in Panthenau (Schleswig) in 1928; from 1934 to 1952, he served as pastor at the Paul-Gerhardt Stift in Berlin. He received his doctorate from Münster in 1948 under W. Stählin. Not considered a “progressive” theologian in the former German Democratic Republic, he was appointed lecturer at the University of Halle-Wittenberg in 1952; in 1953 he was made professor and served from 1956 to 1966 as full professor of practical theology. From 1950 to 1986 he was an editor of
Die Zeichen der Zeit and a staff…
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Religion Past and Present
Ursacius and Valens
(176 words)
[German Version] (died after 371). Ursacius of Singidunum and Valens of Mursa are always mentioned together in the sources. At the Synod of Tarsus in 335, they were opponents of Athanasius; beginning in 351, they appear as theological advisers to the emperor Constantius II and the most important representatives of the Homoeans in the Latin West. They played ¶ a major role in the decisions of the first Synod of Sirmium (357: rejection of the Nicene homoousios) and the Synod of Rimini/Seleucia (359: adoption of the Homoean formula of Nike). Despite the an…
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Religion Past and Present
Ursinus (Antipope)
(212 words)
[German Version] a deacon in Rome, was elected bishop of Rome to succeed Liberius in October of 366 in the Basilica Iuli at roughly the same time as Damasus I. Their conflicting claims led to bloody fighting in the Basilica Sicinini, from which Damasus emerged victorious with the help of the emperor (Jer.
Chron.; Rufinus
Hist. eccl. XI 10; Ammianus Marcellinus
Res gestae XXVII 3.11–15;
Collectio Avellana 1). Jerome and Tyrranius Rufinus assign priority to the consecration of Damasus, a view supported by the fact that it took place in the Lateran Basilica, the …
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Religion Past and Present