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[English Version] von Alexandrien (Ph. Alexandrinus oder Ph. Judaeus; 20/10 v.Chr. – 45 [?] n.Chr.), der bekannteste und einflußreichste Philosoph und Exeget des antiken Judentums (: I.). Von seiner Vita ist kaum etwas bekannt. Nach dem Historiographe…

[English Version] Rossi, Azaria de' (ca.1511 Mantua – ca. 1577 ebd.). Nach Vertreibung der Juden aus dem Kirchenstaat 1569 zog er nach Ferrara, wo er das Erdbeben des 18.11.1570 erlebte, das ihn zu seiner lit. Tätigkeit anregte. R.s Hauptwerk, »Me'or ‘Enayim« (»Licht der Augen«), besteht aus drei Teilen: »Qol Elohim« (»Gottes Stimme«) über das Erdbeben; »Hadrat Zeqenim« (»Glanz der Ältesten«), eine…

[English Version] I. Definition Die Verbindung zw. Judentum und Philosophie deutet auf zwei unterschiedliche, aber doch tief miteinander verbundene Sachverhalte hin: die Stellung des Judentums in der Gesch. der Philos. und die Entstehung einer eigenen »jüd.« Philos. Das Kompositum »jüd. Philos.« verweist dabei hist. gesehen auf einen Prozeß kultureller Auseinandersetzung zw. der griech. »Philos.« und des durch die jüd. Rel. und Kultur geprägten Denkens, wobei beide Seiten oft als unversöhnlich…

[German Version] (Leone Modena da Venezia; 1571, Venice – 1648, Venice). Modena enjoyed a broad education, including Italian literature, music, and song. His family's precarious finances forced him to make a living in various occupations: in his autobiography, he lists 26 different activities. His primary profession, however, was intellectual: he was a writer, teacher, and preacher. Running counter to the fashion of his period, he severely criticized the Kabbalah and defended the teaching of M. Maimonides. His apologetic Magen va-Herev, which remained unfinishe…

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[German Version] I. Definition The combination of the terms Judaism and philosophy suggests two distinct but deeply related issues: the place of Judaism in the history of philosophy and the emergence of a distinctive “Jewish” philosophy. Viewed historically, the compound Jewish philosophy points to a process of cultural debate between Greek “philosophy” and thought shaped by Jewish religion and culture, during which the two were often tre…

[German Version] The philosopher and historiographer Hecataeus was a contemporary of Alexander the Great and of Ptolemy I (Jos. Apion. I 183; Ptolemaic Dynasty). In his famous book, Aegyptiaca, Hecataeus deals with part of Jewish history, as well as Jewish customs, religion and military matters (fragments in Diodoros Siculus XL 3). Josephus cites Hecataeus's essay On the Jews ( Apion. I 183ff., cf. I 214), although its authenticity is doubted. According to Josephus, in this essay, Hecataeus deals with the relationship of the Jews to Ptolemy I, their fid…

[German Version] (1604, Madeira – 1657, Middelburg, Netherlands), rabbi, author and printer, who lived mostly in Amsterdam. Menasseh was a theologian of Judaism who knew how to use secular and rabbinic knowledge in defense of Judaism. In 1626 he founded the first Jewish printing works in Amsterdam. He published a number of writings which were intended to appeal to non-Jews as well as Jews ( …

[German Version] (c. 1530, Osimo – c. 1593, Padua), one of the most important rabbis of the Renaissance. When the expulsion of the Jews commanded by Pius V in 1569 (Persecutions of Jews) forced Moscato to leave Osimo, he became the official preacher of the Jewish community in Padua and in 1587 its chief rabbi. His approach was eclectic. In addition to his rabbinic training, he mastered several secular disciplines – medicine, music, astronomy, rhetoric, and Jewish and Classical philosophy. He combined Kabbalah with neoplatonic ideas (Neoplatonism: III). His works include Nefuzot Yehuda …

[German Version] is the name of a female demon (Demons and Spirits: II) of Babylonian/Sumerian origin that is mentioned only once in the Bible in Isa 34:14. From a philological and tradition-historical point of view, the name Lilith cannot be deciphered with certainty (“night demon”?). In analogy to the Babylonian demon …

[German Version] (c. 1511, Mantua – c. 1577, Mantua). After the expulsion o…

[German Version] (of Prague; 1525 – Aug 12, 1609, Prague), known as “the Maharal” (“our rabbi, Rabbi Loew”), distinguished himself as a teacher of the Talmud and as a rabbi. Judah's legendary life is historically attested for the period from 1559 to 1573 in which he was the rabbi of Nikolsburg and the chief rabbi of Moravia. In 1573, he moved as a private individual to Prague, where he became the head of the school Die Klaus. After the visit of the German emperor Rudolf II, Judah left Prague in 15…

[German Version] We know Aristeas only through a “precise report” ( diḗgēsis) concerning the causes and circumstances of the translation of the LXX for the (fictive) …

[German Version] (acronym: Shadal; Aug 22, 1800, Trieste – Sep 30, 1865, Padua), Orthodox Jewish scholar. Luzzatto was an expert at combining biblical and general learning. In 1829 he was appointed professor of Bible, grammar, Jewish history, and theology at the C…

[German Version] (Aug 5, 1877, San Francisco – Oct 27,1948, New York), Rabbi, one of the founders of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Magnes was ordained as a rabbi in 1900 at the Hebrew Union College. In 1902 he gained a doctorate at Heidelberg. In 1904 Magnes was Reformed rabbi of the Temple Israel in Brooklyn and in 1906 of the Temple Emanu-El in New York. Disappointments with Reform Judaism led him to Conservative Ju…

[German Version] (Philo Alexandrinus or Philo Judaeus; 20/10 bce – 45 [?] ce), best-known and most influential philosopher and exegete in ancient Judaism (I). Scarcely anything is known of his life. According to the historian Flavius Josephus, Philo belonged to one of the leading families of Alexandria. The only certain fact about his life is that he took part in a legation to the Roman emperor Caligula in 39/40 …

[English Version] I. Philosophisch Der Terminus »R.« wird in der Philos. in einem weiteren und einem engeren Sinn verwendet. In seinem weiteren Sinn steht er für alle antiskeptischen Positionen (Skepsis/Skeptizismus: I.) in der Theorie des Seins und seiner Erkenntnis, die die einzig verläßliche Quelle für Erkenntnisgewißheit nicht in der sinnlichen Wahrnehmung, sondern in der Tätigkeit der ratio, der Vernunft (: I.) sehen. Das Paradigma für die Gewißheit (: I.) garantierende Vernunfttätigkeit liefert das mathematische Denken mit seinen Konzepten von Tautologien und deduktiven Schlüssen. In seinem engeren Sinn steht »R.« für eine bestimmte Epoche der Philosophiegesch., nämlich für die vorkantische, kontinentaleur. Philos., die vom etwa gleichzeitigen angelsächsischen Empirismus (: I.) unterschieden wird und deren wichtigste Vertreter G.W. Leibniz und dessen dt. Nachfolger Ch. Wolff und A.G. Baumgarten waren. Frühe Vertreter einer rationalistischen Theorie der Seinserkenntnis waren Demokrit und Plato. Auch in der Philos. der Neuzeit, die die wichtigsten Impulse zu ihrer Entwicklung von der Methodenreflexion in den sich entwickelnden Naturwiss. erfuhr, wurden rationalistische Theorien entwickelt (z.B. von R. Descartes, den Cambridge Platonists und I. Kant). Dabei fungierten als Grund, von dem aus auch sinnliche Wahrnehmung (: II.) und Erfahrung (: I.) als Quelle gewisser Erkenntnisse zu rechtfertigen wären, zum einen die Mathematik mit ihren Gewißheit garantierenden Methoden des Messens und Berechnens empirischer Daten, und zum anderen die Selbstgewißheit des denkenden Subjekts, das über jeden Zweifel an seiner Existenz erhaben schien. Leibniz entwickelte mit seiner »Monadologie« (Monade) eine rationalistische Theorie der Realität und Wirklichkeit. Real sind alle möglichen Monaden in allen möglichen Welten. Gott ist die Zentralmonade, sie allein existiert notwendig. Die von ihm geschaffene wirkliche Welt existiert zwar nur kontingenterweise, läßt sich aber nach dem Gewißheit garantierenden Satz des zureichenden Grundes als Werk des Schöpfergottes erklären. In dieser Welt herrscht eine prästabilierte Harmonie unendlich vieler fensterloser Monaden, die in sich unendlich komplex sind, nicht interagieren, einander aber vollständig repräsentieren und als Kraftzentren nach Klarheit und Deutlichkeit streben. – Unter dem Titel eines »krit. R.« hat K.R. Popper eine Theorie der erfahrungswiss. Erkenntnis entwickelt. R. ist für Popper nicht im Gegensatz zum Empirismus, sondern zum Irrationalismus zu verstehen. Die rationalistische Forderung, daß jede wiss. Aussage entweder durch Erfahrung oder durch Argumente zu begründen sei, ist Popp…

[German Version] I. Philosophy The term rationalism is used in philosophy in a wider and a narrower sense. In its wider sense, it stands for all those antiskeptical positions (Skepticism: I) in the theory of being and its epistemology that see the only reliable source of certain knowledge not in sensory perception but in the activity of ratio, reason (I). The paradigm for reasoning activity that guarantees certainty (I) is provide…

[English Version] I. Geschichtlich und archäologisch 1.  Geschichtlich-archäologisch An einer günstigen Stelle, nämlich der Straße von Etrurien nach Latium und Campanien, einer Furt durch den Tiber, etwa 30 km von der Mündung des Tibers entfernt, weiterhin an der Straße von der Küste Richtung Apennin sowie an fruchtbaren Gegenden am Fluß, gab es zumindest seit dem 14.Jh. v.Chr. kleine Siedlungen (v.a. auf dem Capitol). Der Sage nach wurde R. dann 753 v.Chr. gegründet, und zwar von Romulus, der auch ers…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies – II. Judaism – III. Christianity – IV. Islam I. Religious Studies …

[German Version] I. History of Religions – II. Biblical – III. Greco-Roman Antiquity – IV. Judaism – V. Practical theology I. History of Religions 1. Term . Astrology is the functional use of quantitative astronomical observations and calculations in the service of a qualitative cosmic and anthropological interpretation of the heav…

[German Version] I. History and Archaeology 1. History and archaeology. On a favorable site, on the road from Etruria to Latium and Campania, at a ford over the Tiber about 30 km from its mouth, and also on the road from the coast going in the direction of the Apennines, and in fertile lands by the river, there were small settlements from at least the 14th century bce (esp. on the Capitol). According to legend, Rome was then founded in 753 bce by Romulus, who became its first king. Other legends make Aeneas, son of Anchises ¶ and Aphrodite, the most important Trojan hero after Hector, into …

[German Version] I. General – II. History and Sociology I. General Since 1861 (the establishment of the Kingdom of Italy), Italy has been the name of the first unified nation on the Italian peninsula since the Lombard invasion in 568. Following a referendum in 1946, Italy became a republic (Repubblica Italiana) with a bicameral parliament. The president is the representative chief of state; …

[German Version] I. History of Religion – II. Ancient Near East – III. Greco-Roman Antiquity – IV. Old Testament – V. New Testament – VI. Church History – VII. Judaism – VIII. Islam I. History of Religion “Hospitality” refers to the customs that regulate the temporary admittance of a stranger to a particular group. This aspect can be well illustrated, for …

[German Version] I. Religious Studies – II. Old Testament – III. Judaism – IV. Early Christianity – V. Church History – VI. Liturgical and Practical Aspects I. Religious Studies The words “feast” and “festival” (cf. fête, festa, fiesta, Fest, etc.) derive from the Latin festus ( dies). They refer to the calendar and also evoke the notion of the divine: a feast day is a special day set aside and dedicated to a certain supernatural being. “Feast” or “festival” can therefore be understood as synonyms for religious celebrations. To speak,…

[German Version] I. Definition – II. Historical Expansion …

[German Version] I. Religious Studies – II. Bible – III. Judaism – IV. Islam –V. Philosophy of Religion – VI. Dogmatics – VII. Practical Theology I. Religious Studies Anthropomorphism denotes the conception of God or gods in human form. It derives from the personification of spiritual events (animatism), the idea of attributing a soul to stones, trees or places (Animism) or t…

[German Version] I. History of Religion – II. Bible – III. Dogmatics – IV. Philosophy – V. Philosophy of Religion – VI. Ethics – VII. Practical Theology – VIII. Judaism I. History of Religion The concept of love describes a relationship of affection, tenderness, or devotion between human beings and between humans and God (Love of/for God) or the god…

[German Version] I. History of Religion (Ancient Near East and Antiquity) – II. Old Testament – III. New Testament – IV. Church History – V. Iconography – VI. Practical Theology – VII. Judaism – VIII. Islam I. History of Religion (Ancient Near East and Antiquity) The term “demon” as used in European language groups derives from the Greek (δαίμων/ daímōn), where it initially also referred simply to gods (ϑεοί/ theoí; cf. Homer Iliad 1.122) without either positive or negative connotations. The exclusively “negative” charge associate…

[German Version] I. Translations into Ancient Languages – II. Christian Translations into European Languages since the Middle Ages– III. Translations into Non-European Languages in Modern Times…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies – II. Antiquity – III. Bible – IV. Church History – V. Practical Theology – VI…