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1. General Situation The State of Qatar lies along the peninsula of the same name on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. East Arab Bedouin tribes began to settle there in the 18th century. Among them the Al Thani family played a leading role from the end of the 19th century. In 1872 the territory came under Ottoman rule with a Turkish garrison in Doha, the capital. When the Turks left at the beginning of World War I, Qatar became a British protectorate. By a treaty concluded in 1916, Britain took over responsibility for its defense and foreign policy (Colonialism). 1.1. Britain left the gu…

1. Term The term “divination” comes from Lat. divinatio, meaning “divine inspiration; soothsaying.” Divination is a social practice of choosing and evaluating signs. It is related to such phenomena as the interpretation of events, the seeking of causes (diagnosis), and the planning of action (prognosis). But it also carries with it the extraordinary claim of being the disclosure of what is hidden (Apocalypticism 1), of having privileged access to a special “pool” of signs (e.g., the anatomy of sheep livers), and of having unquestionable authority. Divination practic…

1. Biblical Aspects 1.1. OT The Heb. word for truth is ʾemet, indicating something firm, reliable, and trustworthy or durable. True words or events may be denoted (Deut. 22:20; 1 Kgs. 10:6), or authentic guarantees (Josh. 2:12). The truth may be that of a revelation (Dan. 10:1) or of wisdom (Prov. 22:21). The antithesis is what is false, deceptive, or unstable. Those who tell the truth are people of truth (Gen. 42:16). The reference may be to the truth of their statements or to their inner truthfulness (1 Kgs. 17:24). The word ʾemet often occurs for the truthfulness of God and is somet…

1. Phenomenon So-called Uniate Churches are churches of Eastern Christendom that are in communion with the Roman Catholic Church. The term “uniate” was first used by those opposed to the Union of Brest-Litovsk (1595/96), which brought many Ukrainian Orthodox believers into allegiance with Rome. The churches thus united with Rome, which prefer to call themselves Eastern Catholic (EC) churches, belong to various traditions, following Byzantine, Coptic, Syrian, and other rites. The several EC churches of the Byzantine tradition, which were given the designation “Greek-…

1. Biblical Aspects 1.1. General Biblical history includes a rich theology of the city, which we might see as a parable of all human history and destiny in its vertical relation to God. From the first narratives in Genesis (4ff.) to their counterpart in Revelation (17ff.), the city is a central locus of the development of sinful humanity and of the drama of God’s action both in a response of judgment and in an initiative of grace and salvation. 1.2. Negative Only when the age of innocence in the garden (Genesis 2) ended with disobedience and expulsion (chap. 3) did the history of the city be…

1. Historical Development Marxism is the social doctrine that the disciples of Karl Marx (1818–83)—especially E. Bernstein, K. Kautsky, A. Bebel, F. Mehring, and G. V. Plekhanov, in partnership with F. Engels (1820–95)—developed in the 1880s and 1890s from various elements of thought that they regarded as the essence of Marx’s teaching. Marx himself disliked being called a Marxist, and we cannot really view him as the founder of Marxism. His revolutionary theories were not meant to be doctrines but, in the strict sense, merely an account of a real movement of history ( MECW  6.498). The …

1. Term and Founding From the Middle Ages onward, universities have been cooperative amalgamations of teachers and students devoted to scholarship (universitas magistrorum et scholarium). The learned academies of Greece (Greek Philosophy), of the Roman Empire, and of Islam were predecessors. The church’s monasteries and schools played a part in preserving the early scholastic tradition (Monasticism). As an independent search for knowledge grew, it involved a desire to link faith to reason and science. Scholasticism led to the formation of the first c…

1. Term As a special form of social action, communication denotes the exchange of signs between a communicator and a recipient. This method of conveying meaning relates to the thinking, feelings, and acts of others. In communication science the term “communication” is normally limited to exchanges between one ¶ person or persons and another or others with the help of spoken language, signs, and symbols, including nonverbal. It is usual to think of the verbal elements as being auditorily perceived and primarily rationally or cognitively process…

1. In the History of Religion 1.1. Perspectives on Creation Philosophy and natural science trace the origin of the world and humanity back to impersonal, law-governed causes. Religion, however, finds a suprahuman plan behind life and its foundations. In addition to the elementary language of confession (Confession of Faith), reflection on creation also can draw on philosophical and scientific argumentation, which makes use of elements and general concepts familiar from the world around us. It may also use the language of myth, which presents creation ¶ in the story of a one-time,…