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
Social Gospel
(984 words)
[German Version] is a loosely organized movement that developed among Protestants in the United States in the late-19th century. Precise dates for the movement’s beginning and ending are not easily identified. The Social Gospel combined traditional evangelical piety with a new call for the redemption of the social order. Impulses that led to the movement are found in at least four distinct sources: 1. Social crises external to the church, rooted in the economic struggles of a modern industrial soc…
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Religion Past and Present
Social History
(4,845 words)
[German Version]
I. Terminology and Theory In its scientific exploration of the past, all historiography aims at a synthesis in the sense of a valid overview of what has gone before. At best, however, the quest can succeed only paradigmatically and typically, because any reconstruction of an
histoire totale is doomed to failure. Nevertheless historiography cannot abandon the ven-¶ ture of viewing history (History/Concepts of history) as a whole, because otherwise the incalculable mass of detail would rule out any interpretation of historical processes. …
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Religion Past and Present
Socialism
(3,591 words)
[German Version]
I. Terminology The word
socialism can denote a theoretical school of thought, a political movement (Parties), and a way of organizing the state and society. As a theoretical school, modern (as distinct from premodern) socialism emerged in the 19th century as a response to the unreasonable demands of dynamically expanding capitalistic control of the means of production (Capitalism). All conceptions of socialism share rejection of the individualistic profit principle based on a private …
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Religion Past and Present
Socialism and Theology
(8 words)
[German Version] Religious Socialists
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Religion Past and Present
Socialist Parties
(1,318 words)
[German Version] Lorenz v. Stein’s
Der Socialismus und Communismus des heutigen Frankreichs (1842) provided the first systematic survey of the group of socialist and communist theoreticians (Socialism, Communism) in France in the first half of the 19th century. Stein understood their various philosophical, sociocritical, and future-oriented blueprints as responses to the social and political situation of the emerging proletariat under the conditions of a capitalistic economy (Capitalism). The attempts of w…
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Religion Past and Present
Socialization
(1,371 words)
[German Version]
I. Religious Studies The term
socialization is used in various academic fields, especially sociology, (social) psychology, and the educational disciplines (Education, Theory of ). Already used by É. Durkheim in 1907, it experienced a wave of popularity in the 1960s and again in the 1980s. Initially it emphasized the formation of individuals by society; recently it has focused more on the interaction between individuals’ own activity and outside influences and between individuation and …
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Religion Past and Present
Social Liberalism
(536 words)
[German Version] The term
social liberalism covers a variety of movements in various periods and places; all have combined the liberal tradition of the 18th century with the social challenges of modern industrial societies. ¶ There is no generally accepted definition, but the core of social liberalism has always been the same: the demand for moderate state intervention in the economy to mitigate the consequences of glaring social differences. In contrast to the ideas of socialism, the priority of the individual over society is emphasized. The ideas and programs of social liberal…
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Religion Past and Present
Social Movements
(884 words)
[German Version]
I. Definition Social movements are agents of social change that concentrate on revolutionary transformation of society (social-revolutionary movements), reform within an existing social system (reform movements), or defense or restoration of a status quo (resistance movements). They play a central role in understanding social conflicts and analyzing social change.
II. History The expression
social movement arose in Europe in the late 18th century, initially in Britain and France. Its earliest clear use in Germany is in the work of Lo…
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Religion Past and Present
Social Policy
(651 words)
[German Version] A basic function of the liberal state is to enable people to enjoy maximum freedom for the best possible exercise of their opportunities to live self-determined lives. The requirement of free decision also implies freedom from constraints imposed by others in the economic sphere and leads to the system of a market economy. In this system, limits must be placed on the market that facilitate fair and socially just results. The freedom to enter into contracts must not be used as a we…
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Religion Past and Present
Social Psychology
(1,678 words)
[German Version]
I. The Concept Social psychology studies the modes of social experience and behavior and the interaction processes both of individuals and between individuals and social systems (Community and the individual) of varying complexity (microsystems like partnerships, families [Family], groups; mesosystems like organizations and institutions; macrosystems like social, political and cultural entities), as well as the relationship of social systems to each other. The basic issues, which are…
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Religion Past and Present
Social Question
(1,023 words)
[German Version]
I. Definition The term
social question is linked indissolubly to the social history of the 19th century; it denotes the diagnoses of the crises produced by the emergence of industrial society and the strategies for dealing with it. By the 1840s,
soziale Frage was already in use in Germany as a translation of the French
question sociale; against the background of dramatically rising mass poverty and the first food riots, it summarized various social transformations that were experienced as extreme crises. In particular, we can identify …
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Religion Past and Present
Social Reform
(347 words)
[German Version] By social reform, we mean the reform of the existing social security system in general. The need for such a reform in the Federal Republic of Germany is clear for several reasons. Expenditures related to social policy, more than half of all government spending, consumes the lion’s share of all public spending. In the year 2000, the statutory social security system alone cost 416 billion euros. At present the total “social budget,” which includes government spending ¶ occasioned by distributional policy (such as social welfare and unemployment assistance), …
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Religion Past and Present
Social Research, Empirical
(725 words)
[German Version] Empirical social research is a significant requirement for the social sciences (sociology, psychology, ethnology, economics) to the extent that they consider themselves factual sciences. It comprises the development and application of methods and techniques for discovering theoretically relevant information about social issues and situations, confirmed by explicitly systematic study. This information includes (a) objective data (e.g. legal structures, institutional structures, str…
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Religion Past and Present
Social Safety Net
(605 words)
[German Version] In Germany, anyone who is unemployed, disabled, sick, or care-dependent is supported by a system of various transfer payments. Until 2004 social welfare provided a basic level of security for all the needy, both the disabled and those able to work. The long-term unemployed came under unemployment assistance. Social welfare and unemployment assistance were changed by the social legislation of 2004. Now a distinction is made between the disabled and those able to work. Since Jan 1, …
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Religion Past and Present
Social Sciences
(595 words)
[German Version]
I. Like many other terms in the language of politics and society, the term
social sciences emerged in France in the late 18th century (
sciences sociales) and spread in the late 19th century. It is a collective term for the academic disciplines devoted to human sociality in its various forms and senses. The German term
Gesellschaftswissenschaften, often treated as synonymous, is not quite accurate, since strictly speaking only sociology, politology (Political science), and economics relate unambiguously to society (
Gesellschaft). All other disciplines called…
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Religion Past and Present
Social Science Statistics
(550 words)
[German Version] The notion of social stratification, which implies a sequence of superimposed ¶ social strata (or layers), is inspired from the model of geological stratification and originated in American structural functionalism. Various efforts to analyze social inequalities in modern societies lie at the root of the concept of social stratification, for which there is no generally accepted definition. While “social stratum” serves as a generic term for caste, estate, or class, it is also used as a synonym for “social class,” or as a concept that is in fact
not to be confused wit…
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Religion Past and Present
Social Security
(700 words)
[German Version] Social security has a long history in Germany. The golden age of social legislation was the end of the Bismarck era. The year 1883 saw the introduction of statutory health insurance, followed by accident insurance in 1884 and disability and old age insurance in 1889 (Security, Social). Social changes associated with the breakdown of the traditional security community of peasants and artisans led to the emergence of a workforce dependent on wages (Pay and reward: II), which ceased …
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Religion Past and Present
Social State
(1,223 words)
[German Version]
I. Term and History The concept of the social state needs to be distinguished from that of the welfare state. The former emphasizes the responsibility and cooperation of all for socially just structures within a society; the latter tends to suggest a “nanny state” that guarantees social security (Security, Social) and is concerned primarily with the redistribution of social resources. The social state attaches great importance to subsidiarity, i.e. helping people to help themselves th…
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Religion Past and Present
Social Welfare
(374 words)
[German Version] is secondary, non-contributory public assistance to needy individuals. The oldest form of social benefit (Social safety net, Social security), it developed out of poor relief (Poor, Care of the), with roots going back to the public law codes and poor laws of the 15th and 16th centuries. Today the function of welfare is no longer just to guarantee the minimum necessities of life. It is intended to put the recipient in a position to live a life commensurate with human dignity. In Ge…
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Religion Past and Present
Social Work
(1,010 words)
[German Version]
I. Definition Since the early 20th century, social work has been defined as “organized assistance on the part of the state and municipalities, public corporations, and private organizations . . . provided to individuals, families, and groups to avert internal and external hardship and meet their essential needs” (Heyne, 917). Related concepts are relief and social welfare. The term
Sozialarbeit was accepted only gradually in Germany, obviously influenced by the Anglo-American term
social work and the notion of social work as a distinct profession.
II. Organiz…
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Religion Past and Present
Societas Liturgica
(234 words)
[German Version] The Societas Liturgica was founded in Driebergen, the Netherlands, in 1967 on the initiative of Wiebe Vos. Its is an international ecumenical association for liturgical research and renewal, with the purpose of promoting ecumenical dialogue on liturgical questions and serving the unity of the church (Liturgical studies: II, 3). Vos was already pursuing the same goal in 1962 when he founded the quarterly
Studia Liturgica, which became the official organ of the Societas Liturgica in 1987. As of Jul 1, 2003, the society had 455 members on all con…
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Religion Past and Present
Société des Missions Étrangères de Paris (MEP)
(214 words)
[German Version] Founded in 1663 (a mission seminary since 1660) on the initiative of lay members of the Compagnie du Saint-Sacrement, the society was supported by the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith. Its
Instructions name three purposes: to reduce the dominance of Spanish and Portuguese missionary patronage in Asia, to adapt to local customs and cultures, and to create an indigenous clergy. As vicars apostolic, subject directly to Rome, its bishops ordained indigenous secular priests. The society, which served as a model for some ten similar societies, has…
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Religion Past and Present
Societies, Benevolent
(364 words)
[German Version] are combinations of sponsoring organizations or institutions that represent the common professional interests and individual interests of those concerned to public policy makers (Politics) and society as a whole; they also facilitate self-organization. They are dedicated to the common good. Today there are some 3,600 such societies in Germany. As a rule, the criterion for membership is engagement in not-for-profit activities. Societies are usually organized (Voluntary associations…
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Religion Past and Present
Societies of Apostolic Life
(155 words)
[German Version] The societies of apostolic life found today in both the Eastern Uniate churches and the Latin Church came into being in the late 16th century. To avoid the ecclesiastical and social isolation imposed at that time by the legal corset of monastic life, quasi-monastic communities were formed that aimed at a more flexible community structure. The unfortunate definition in
CIC c. 731 notwithstanding, these
societates are societies of common life without monastic vows, but – depending on their individual constitutions – they make commitments of othe…
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Religion Past and Present
Societies, Theological
(534 words)
[German Version] The roots of scientific societies go back to the learned societies of the Enlightenment. In the secular form of private associations, scholars began joining in specialized societies in the post-Napoleonic period (Vormärz); they wished to articulate their interests, influence public opinion, and organize discussions of central questions in their fields. Communication within these societies took the form of congresses, circular letters, and specialized journals. Historians of cultur…
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Religion Past and Present
Society
(6,607 words)
[German Version]
I. Terminology The word
society (
societas, société) has changed from a term denoting
particular forms and modes of human coexistence to a term (in both sg. and pl.) denoting the
totality of human coexistence; it has thus become the basic term of the theoretical sciences that deal with human coexistence. The German equivalent,
Gesellschaft (from OHG
sal, “room,” and
selida, “dwelling place”), suggests ties that arise from sharing the same room (cf.
Geselle, “apprentice,” etymologically “someone ¶ sharing accommodations” with a master) or belonging to the sa…
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Religion Past and Present
Society for Ethical Culture
(166 words)
[German Version] was founded in New York in 1876 by F. Adler. Raised a Reform Jew (Reform Judaism), Adler came to reject traditional notions of monotheism, though he continued to look at the Hebrew Scriptures and the person of Jesus for inspiration. Adhering to the slogan, “deed not creed,” Adler encouraged the efforts of individuals rather than formal institutions and ritualized traditions. The Society for Ethical Culture with its regular Sunday services and Adler’s humanistic addresses became th…
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Religion Past and Present
Society for the Propagation of the Faith (SPF)
(335 words)
[German Version] The Society was formed from what had been four separate church organizations officially declared pontifical institutions in 1922 and 1980; its purpose is to promote the worldwide mission of the Catholic Church (Mission: II, 3). It structure is defined in its 1980 statutes. The Pontifical Society for the Propagation of the Faith was founded in Lyon in 1822 by M.-P. Jaricot and a group of laity; it was introduced into Germany as the Franziskus-Xaverius or Ludwig-Missionsverein (know…
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Religion Past and Present
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPG)
(277 words)
[German Version] The SPG was established under royal charter by T. Bray in 1701 to supply the “want of learned and orthodox ministers” in the plantations, colonies, and “factories beyond the seas.” The rapidly expanding British Empire presented both challenges and opportunities for the Church of England. The SPG set out to “settle the State of Religion” for the colonists before undertaking “the conversion of the Natives.” During the 18th century the SPG’s efforts focused on the American colonies,…
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Religion Past and Present
Society of the Divine Word (Steyler Missionaries)
(242 words)
[German Version] The Society of the Divine Word (Societas Verbi Divini, ¶ SVD) was founded by A. Janssen, a secular priest, on Sep 8, 1875, in Steyl in the Netherlands. He intended the Mission House to be a missionary training center, but it soon developed into a religious congregation with simple public vows. Its statutes were confirmed by the local ordinary on Jan 23, 1889; papal approbation was granted on Jan 25, 1901, definitive approval of the constitution on Apr 5, 1910. The generalate was at the moth…
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Religion Past and Present
Socinians/Socinianism
(955 words)
[German Version] This term, first used in the 17th century, denotes the main stream of the anti-Trinitarian movement (Antitrinitarians), moderated in many respects by F. Socinus after 1579. The Socinians explicitly kept the Trinitarian formula in the command to baptize (Matt 28:19). According to the Racovian Catechism, anyone who rejected it could not be a Christian. It was the Early Church’s doctrine of the consubstantiality of the Father and the Son and the personhood of the Holy Spirit that the…
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Religion Past and Present
Socinus, Faustus
(162 words)
[German Version] (Dec 5, 1539, Siena – Mar 3, 1604, Lucławice, near Cracow), a leading thinker of the antitrinitarian movement (Antitrinitarians, Socinians) of his era, shaped its churches in Poland and to some extent in Transylvania. Born a patrician, he served from 1562 to 1574 as a jurist at the Medici court in Florence; inspired by his uncle Lelio Sozzini, who did not believe the doctrine of the Trinity, he devoted himself to theological study, primarily at Basel, from 1572 to 1578, attracting attention with his first writings (including
De Jesu Christo servatore, printed in 1594).…
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Religion Past and Present
Sociobiology
(579 words)
[German Version] Sociobiology has improved our understanding of the social life of human beings and animals on the basis of a neo-Darwinian theory of evolution (Neo-Darwinism; cf. Meisinger, 187ff., with bibl.). Grounded in ethology (Behavioral research) and building on population genetics and the theory of kin selection, sociobiology was popularized in the 1970s by Edward O. Wilson and Richard Dawkins, becoming a separate area within biology. It was intended to take its place as a fundamental dis…
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Religion Past and Present
Sociology
(5,316 words)
[German Version]
I. Definition Sociology is an empirical social science; its field of study encompasses the relatively enduring forms and structures of social action (Action, Science of ) and the resultant social units, from entities like the family and kinship group and social groups to large-scale organizations and states. The word itself is an artificial combination of Latin
socius (“companion, fellow”) and Greek
logos (“word, truth,” in an extended sense “knowledge”). It appears for the first time in vol. IV of the
Cours de philosophie positive of A. Comte (1838). As a scie…
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Religion Past and Present
Sociology of Knowledge
(525 words)
[German Version] The sociology of knowledge inquires into the social conditions under which knowledge is generated, acquired, and communicated. Its beginnings are closely interwoven with positivist criticism of religion and ideology (Religious criticism, Ideological criticism). K. Marx pioneered the sociology of knowledge with his recognition that the content of knowledge is conditioned by social and economic factors. E. Durkheim began instead with the forms of knowledge; starting with an analysis…
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Religion Past and Present
Sociology of Religion
(3,710 words)
[German Version]
I. Terminology The sociology of religion studies religion’s social aspects and manifestations, clearly including religious institutions, organizations, and social groups. It also studies more situational forms, less clearly defined, such as gatherings, ceremonies, and collective rituals (e.g. processions [Rite and ritual]). In an extended sense, characteristic of the German-language tradition since M. Weber, religious sociology deals with all social or socialized behavior focused on…
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Religion Past and Present
Sociology of the Church
(1,158 words)
[German Version]
I. Practical Theology The systematic study of the church as a social entity (Churched) began with A. v. Oettingen in the 19th century. In the context of practical theology, the church studies published by P. Drews beginning in 1902 produced accurate descriptions of the life of the church. These were joined in subsequent decades by smaller individual studies, especially of the religiosity of industrial workers. Pastoral sociology began to take shape in France and the Netherlands, buil…
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Religion Past and Present
Sociology of Youth
(849 words)
[German Version] In the early 21st century, youth studies as an empirical discipline is increasingly becoming an interdisciplinary subject, to which scholars from various fields contribute, including social anthropology, philosophy, social history, biology, psychology, education, medicine, and sociology. It embraces sociologically based attempts that draw on both single and multiple disciplines to cast light on the circumstances and lifeworlds of young people in various historical, social, cultura…
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Religion Past and Present
Socrates
(1,072 words)
[German Version] (470 or 469, Athens – 399, Athens), is the prototypical philosopher. He embodies the dialogical character of thinking, the possibility of articulating thoughts in such a way that they are no longer simply stated, as in the case of the “pre-Socratic” thinkers Heraclitus and Parmenides, but can be repeatedly reformulated and tested to determine their coherence. Only in this process can the authority of ideas be proved – whatever is important enough for people to take the trouble to …
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Religion Past and Present
Socrates Scholasticus
(359 words)
[German Version] (Socrates of Constantinople; the epithet
Scholasticus is not found in any early tradition; after 380, Constantinople – before 443, Constantinople), author of a history of the church from the time of Constantine the Great (305) to his own day under Theodosius II (439). He probably belonged to the Novatianist church (Novatian), and may have been ordained. Initially basing his work on Eusebius of Caesarea (and Gelasius of Caesarea and Rufinus of Aquileia [Rufinus, Tyrannius] before him), …
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Religion Past and Present
Socratic Method
(490 words)
[German Version] The Socratic or erotematic method is a teaching method modeled on Socrates. It was used in the late 18th and early 19th centuries – i.e. the era of the Enlightenment and philanthropism – in all academic subjects, but particularly in religious education. M. Schian calls the Socratic method the “fashionable theory and practice of rationalism” and describes it as the “pedagogical and catechetical hobbyhorse of the Enlightenment” (Schian, 1). Alluding to his mother’s profession, Socra…
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Religion Past and Present
Soden
(737 words)
[German Version]
1. Hermann von (Aug 16, 1852, Cincinnati, OH – Jan 15, 1914, Berlin), pastor and New Testament scholar. After serving as a pastor from 1881 to 1889 (after 1887 in Berlin), he gained his habilitation in 1890 and began to teach as
Privatdozent in NT; in 1893 he was appointed associate professor of NT in Berlin and honorary professor in 1913. His major achievement was the publication of a four-volume edition of the Greek NT with 40 colleagues collating the manuscripts. His goal was to analyze the entire manuscript corpus and…
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Religion Past and Present
Söderblom, Nathan
(464 words)
[German Version] (baptized Lars Olof Jonathan; Jan 15, 1866, Trönö – Jul 12, 1931, Uppsala), Swedish Protestant theologian, historian of religion specializing ¶ in ancient Iranian religions, and an advocate of comparative phenomenology in religious studies. He was appointed archbishop of Uppsala in 1914 and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1930 for his lifetime achievement. Although he is associated with the phenomenology of religion (I) in religious studies, in all his works he remained faithful to a theological perspect…
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Religion Past and Present
Sodom and Gomorrah
(321 words)
[German Version] unidentified cities, in the Old Testament tradition located south of the Dead ¶ Sea outside Canaan. They are often associated with Admah, Zeboiim, and Zoar (Gen 10:19; 14:2, 8) as the “Pentapolis” (Wis 10:6). According to Gen 19, what had once been a fertile area (Gen 13:10) was destroyed by a rain of fire and brimstone, suggesting volcanic activity, for which there is evidence only prior to the 2nd millennium. The theory that the tradition preserves a memory of Early Bronze Age cities (south)…
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Religion Past and Present
Soetefleisch, Johann
(159 words)
[German Version] (Oct 16, 1552, Seesen – May 19, 1620, Wunstorf ). After studying at the Pädagogium in Gandersheim (1571), he served as choirmaster in Halberstadt (1575); he received his M.A. and Dr.phil. from Helmstedt in 1578. In 1578 he was appointed rector in Burg, near Magdeburg. In 1581 he was appointed professor of dialectics and ethics at Helmstedt and professor theology there in 1587. In 1589 he was appointed general superintendent of Göttingen and in 1608 of Calenburg. As a member of the…
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Religion Past and Present
Soga, Tiyo
(346 words)
[German Version] (1829, Mgwali River, Tyhume Valley, Nqgika [Xhosa] Territory – Aug 12, 1871, Tuturha [later Somerville], Gcaleka Territory, Eastern Cape Province, South Africa), the first Black minister in South Africa ordained abroad in an established church. He was missionary among the Xhosa on the eastern frontier of the Cape Colony, writer, hymnographer, and translator. Soga received his early education at the mission school run by the United Presbyterian Church in Tyhume. Between 1844 and 18…
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Religion Past and Present