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
Paradox
(1,014 words)
[German Version] I. Philosophy – II. Philosophy of Religion and Fundamental Theology
I. Philosophy A statement that is simply incredible is described in philosophy and logic as a paradox, if, in spite of its “unbelievability,” it seems nevertheless to be correctly deduced from acceptable premises. An example of this kind is the Socratic paradox stating that action against better knowledge is impossible (cf. Plato
Prot. 351b–358e). From the
prima facie plausible pragmatic theory assumption: (1) “People always freely do what seems best (for them),” the statement se…
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Religion Past and Present
Paradoxography
(418 words)
[German Version] (a post-classical coinage) is a genre of classical texts that recount wonders (Gk ϑαύματα/
tháumata; Lat.
mirabilia) from the realm of nature and from history – extraordinary phenomena that are incredible and contrary to all expectations (Paradox). Paradoxography is a subdivision of natural history (
naturalis historia) and historiography. Its materials are considered empirical and historical; though unusual and hidden on the fringes of the known world, they are not myths from antiquity. In the
Parallela minora of Pseudo-Plutarch, for example, “paradoxica…
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Religion Past and Present
Paraguay
(1,064 words)
[German Version] I. Catholicism – II. Protestantism – III. Expressions of Popular Religion Paraguay is a South American republic, bordering on Argentina, Bolivia, and Brazil. It has an area of 406,752 km2. In 2000 it had a population of about 5.5 million, 95% mestizos. The rest of the population are descendants of European immigrants who came to the region of the Rio de la Plata at the end of the 19th century or of Asians who immigrated in the 20th century. A 1992 survey identified 190,907 foreign nation-¶ als, including 56.8% Brazilians, 25.8% Argentinians, 5.7% Asians, and 3.8% E…
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Religion Past and Present
Paralipomena Jeremiae
(7 words)
[German Version] Jeremiah, Writings
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Religion Past and Present
Paraphrase of Shem (NHC VII, 1; Paraph. Shem)
(12 words)
[German Version] Sethianism
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Religion Past and Present
Parapsychology
(1,636 words)
[German Version] I. Natural Science – II. Religious Studies – III. Practical Theology
I. Natural Science Parapsychology is the study of supranormal psychic phenomena (also known as psy-phenomena) such as extrasensory perception, telepathy, telekinesis or psychokinesis, remote viewing or second sight, spiritual healing, out-of-body and near-death experiences. All these phenomena are (psychic) effects from a distance, and therefore mental connections that obviate physical causal connections. Scientific research i…
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Religion Past and Present
Para-Science
(5 words)
[German Version] Pseudo-Science/Para-Science
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Religion Past and Present
Paredes y Flores, Mariana de Jesús
(222 words)
[German Version] (Oct 31, 1618, Quito, now in Ecuador – May 26, 1645, Quito). Orphaned at six years old, Mariana moved into the house of her elder sister, and at the age of seven, on the occasion of her first communion, made a vow of total chastity. She was spiritually counseled by Jesuits, on whose advice she entered the Franciscan women’s third order in 1639. She lived in the greatest seclusion and devoted her life to works of voluntary penance and active love of neighbor. When Quito was hit by …
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Religion Past and Present
Parenesis
(1,098 words)
[German Version] I. Old Testament – II. New Testament Greek παραίνεσις/
paraínesis (from παραινέω/
parainéō) means “advice, counsel, exhortation.” Among the Stoics, the term can be used for the part of philosophy that hortatively expounds the practical conclusions of their teaching (Sen.
Ep. 95.1). In biblical studies, it usually does not represent a fixed genre but a function. It characterizes a text as well-intentioned exhortation to proper behavior. It is spoken by an authority – sometimes someone on his deathbed (Deut; 1 Kgs 2:1ff.;…
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Religion Past and Present
Parental Rights
(2,979 words)
[German Version] I. Background – II. Historical Development in Germany – III. Present-day Challenges
I. Background “The care and upbringing of children is the natural right of parents and a duty primarily incumbent upon them. The state shall watch over them in the performance of this duty” (Ger. Basic Law §6.2). Parental rights are also guaranteed in the international declarations on human rights (IV). The basic principle is that parents have the right to decide how their children (Child/Childhood) grow up – the par-¶ ents, not the state, and not the children themselves. Parent…
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Religion Past and Present
Parents
(522 words)
[German Version] Parenthood denotes the common relationship of man and woman to their children, in which biological, social, and religious aspects need to be taken into account. Procreation by the two sexes has until now meant that everyone has a woman and a man as biological parents. Possible biotechnical intervention (clones) could change this in future, with as yet unforeseeable consequences. Human cultural determination means that the basic biological fact requires qualification. It is true th…
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Religion Past and Present
Pareto, Vilfredo Federico Damaso
(291 words)
[German Version] ( Jul 15, 1848, Paris – Aug 19, 1923, Céligny near Geneva), economist and sociologist, son of a French mother and an Italian father. Pareto had a brilliant understanding of how to bring sociological insights into economics, and ideas from economics into sociology, and how to apply notions from each within the other discipline. In addition, following L. Walras, he further developed economics as a general theory of balance, becoming one of the founders of its current mathematical ba…
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Religion Past and Present
Pareus (Wängler), David
(316 words)
[German Version] (Gk form; actually Wängler; Dec 30, 1548, Frankenstein, Silesia – Jun 15, 1622, Heidelberg), Reformed theologian. In 1566 Pareus followed his teacher Christoph Schilling, a disciple of Melanchthon who had been dismissed from Hirschberg, to Amberg, and from there went to study at Sapientia College in Heidelberg. After working as pastor in Lower Schlettenbach (May 1571), and as lecturer at Sapientia College (October 1571), Pareus became pastor in Hemsberg (August 1573), where he int…
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Religion Past and Present
Parham, Charles Fox
(198 words)
[German Version] (Jun 4, 1873, Muscatine, IA – Jan 29, 1929, Baxter Springs, KS), joined the Congregational Christian Church around 1886 and attended Southwest Kansas College until 1890. After 1895 he traveled as an independent Holiness evangelist and founded Beth-el Healing Home (Topeka, KS) in 1898, adding a Bible school in 1900, where the charismatic phenomenon of glossolalia (III) occurred on Jan 1, 1901. Parham declared glossolalia to be the only authentic sign of baptism in the Holy Spirit a…
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Religion Past and Present
Paris
(2,001 words)
[German Version] I. City and Bishopric – II. University
I. City and Bishopric The cradle of the present capital of France was the Île de la Cité (Lutetia), settled in the 3rd century bce by the Celtic tribe of the Parisii. After putting down a rebellion by the Gauls in 52 bce, the Romans under Julius Caesar built their administrative center on the island in the Seine; in the years that followed, they built a forum and thermae on the hill of Ste. Geneviève on the left bank. In the administrative structure of the Roman Empire, however, Sens, not P…
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Religion Past and Present
Paris Evangelical Missionary Society
(282 words)
[German Version] (PEMS; Société des Missions Evangéliques de Paris; Mission de Paris) was founded in 1822. Until its dissolution in 1971, it united local mission support groups in France, Switzerland, and Italy. It cooperated mainly with Lutheran and Reformed churches, but also with Baptists, Methodists, and other free churches. In 1829 it sent its first missionaries to South Africa, since at that time Protestants were forbidden access to French colonial territories. In 1833 more missionaries foll…
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Religion Past and Present
Parish
(1,237 words)
[German Version] I. Catholicism – II. Orthodoxy – III. Protestantism The term parish comes from the Greek παροικία/
paroikía (“resident alien’s dwelling”), which in early Christianity expressed the foreignness of Christians in society. Resulting from this basic feeling, individual congregations were called παροικίαι/
paroikíai from the 2nd century. Until Late Antiquity,
paroikía remained a technical term for a bishop’s congregation. Only after the rise of pastoral subcenters in large towns and rural areas, which became the main point of reference for ¶ believers’ religious li…
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Religion Past and Present