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[German Version] While the phenomenological approach in religious studies (Phenomenology of religion) placed the supposed “essence” and immutability of religion at the center of its considerations, contemporary systematic approaches to religion emphasize the transformations and the nature of religion and religions as a process. Religious traditions are not static constructs in an ahistorical realm. Instead, the practices, contents, forms of expression, and…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies In general usage, tradition (from Lat. transdare/ tradere, “hand on, transmit”) connotes retention and safeguarding, understood as a conservative handing down of mores, customs, norms, rules, and knowledge. The emphasis is on continuity with the past. Jan Assmann interprets tradition as an exemplary case of “cultural memory,” an enduring cultural construction of identity. In religions appeal to tradition is a prominent element justifying interpretations, practices, clai…

[German Version] I. History of Religion – II. Missiology I. History of Religion 1. The Buddha and his Teaching. Although the biographical dates of the historical Buddha are uncertain, scholars generally put them at 563–483 bce. The Buddha understood his own teaching as a path to redemption, i.e., to liberation from the wretched cycle of rebirths. This teaching (Dharma) is often exp…

[German Version] I. History of Religions – II. Jewish Diaspora – III. Christian Diaspora I. History of Religions The Greek noun διασπορά/ diasporá derives from the composite verb διασπείρω/ dia-speírō, translated “to disperse, scatter, be separated.” Epicurus, following Plutarch, used diasporá in the context of his philosophical doctrine of the atom in the sense of “dissolution down to the last units, to have become without context.” The Jewish translators of the Hebrew Bible into Greek (LXX; Bible translations: I, 1) took up this concept employed in the philosophical context, but gave it a soteriological significance. In the LXX, the substantive diasporá occurs twelve times and the verb diaspeírein more than 40 times. Notably, however, there is no specific Hebrew correlative either for the verb or for the noun. Even the Hebrew terms gôlā and galût (“exile, deportation, expulsion, the exiled”) are not translated by diasporá…

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[German Version] I. Religious Studies – II. Philosophy – III. Fundamental Theology I. Religious Studies The term “boundary” is used spatially, temporally, and metaphorically. Spatially, a boundary separates localities and territories, signaled by boundary markers (cf. OE mearc, “boundary, landmark”). I…

[German Version] (May 28, 1920, Glasgow – Dec 18, 1983, Charlottesville, VA), British ethnologist. After doing fieldwork among the Ndem…

[German Version] The sociological concept of a world society constitutes the existence of a global social system, conceived of as a unity on the basis of a specific concept of society as an empirical object. The idea was put forward in the 1970s by Peter Meintz, John Meyer, Immanuel Wallerstein, and N. Luhmann, each on the basis of his own theoretical premises; its guiding notion is that there is a distinct global dynamic and global level of social interaction that represents the benchmark for oth…

1. Diaspora (Gk., ‘scattering’) in the context of its early Jewish origin denotes the Jewish communities in diverse places outside the ‘Land of Israel’ (Palestine), and far from Jerusalem. Since the sixteenth century, the term has been used to designate Protestant and Catholic minorities living in an environment of different Christian confessions. Over the last three decades, the concept of Diaspora has achieved a great popularity in…

1. Migration, the spatial mobility of individuals and groups, represents, after deliberate extension (→ Mission), the most important factor in the spread of religions. Although we meet the nineteenth- and twentieth-century movement of individ…

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[English Version] I. Religionswissenschaftlich Im allg. Sprachgebrauch ist »T.« (lat. transdare, »weiterreichen, übergeben, überliefern«) als ein Festhalten und Bewahren konnotiert; …

[English Version] Turner, Victor Witter (28.5.1920 Glasgow – 18.12.1983 Charlottesville, VA, USA), brit. Ethnologe. Feldforschungen bei den Ndembu in Afrika in den 50er Jahren, später waren Pilgerschaft und Wallfahrt zentrale Forschungsthemen. T. entwi…

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