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.
Subscriptions: see brill.com
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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
New Self
(1,521 words)
1. Presuppositions To speak about the new self presupposes that we are people of time. Time, however, is experienced not in individual, separated moments but in the nexus of past, present, and future. It is the future and its relation to the past that defines the new self. A further premise is that we are not to be understood merely as we are in ourselves—that is, as substances (see Aristotle’s doctrine of categories)—but in relations that determine our existence.
2. Biblical and Theological Bases 2.1. Biblically, a new time is granted that resists death, both in the midst of l…
New Testament Era, History of
(3,142 words)
1. Term, Tasks, Limits As a historical discipline or literary genre, the history of the NT era is linked to the name of Matthias Schneckenburger (1804–48), though in many respects it existed earlier. In his lectures on the subject, which appeared posthumously in 1862, Schneckenburger formulated the tasks and intentions of this branch of research in a way that is still influential. He also drew attention implicitly to the problems in historical theology that still call for attention. In studying the NT era or background, the national, cultural, and religious relations must…
New Thought
(591 words)
1. The New Thought movement began with the American healer Phineas P. Quimby (1802–66), who laid the foundations for its spread with his great success in spiritual healing. His “science of health and life” and “mental science” were attractive because they allowed of direct practical application in treating the sick, and they quickly gained followers. In his
Varieties of Religious Experience (1902), William James called it “the religion of healthy-mindedness.”
2. Helping the rapid spread of the movement was the work of early writers like W. F. Evans (1817–89), H. Wo…
New Zealand
(1,810 words)
1. Pre-Christian The peoples now called Maori came to New Zealand from eastern Polynesia, perhaps in the late 14th century. Long isolation produced a distinctive culture with developed hierarchies, arts, technology, and oral literature. The Maori universe was full of spirits, divided into complementary spheres of light (Te Rangi) and darkness (Te Po). Adepts in the highest spiritual and mythical knowledge (Myth, Mythology, 1) formed a class of experts
(tohunga) who had access to the higher spirit beings
(atua) and delivered prophetic oracles
(karakia). If a pre-Christian cult o…