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[German Version] (Dec 11, 1714, Seyringen, Principality of Oettingen – Nov 4, 1789, Büt-¶ zow) was inspector of the Halle orphanage in 1752 and deacon at St. Moritz (Halle) in 1753. In 1758 Döderlein was called by Duke Friedrich v. Mecklenburg to Rostock as professor and consistory councillor. Owing to unanimous opposition to the installation of the Pietist Döderlein on the part of the cleri…

[German Version] (Sep 12, 1604, Strehlen, Silesia [now Strzelin, Poland] – Mar 5 [?], 1686, Berlin), Reformed theologian and adviser on religious policy. After schooling at the Schönaichianum Gymnasium in Beuthen [Bytom], he began to study theology in Frankfurt an der Oder in 1626. In 1629 he began working as a private tutor in East Prussia. From 1632 to 1640 he broadened his education by traveling in the ¶ Netherlands (Leiden), England, and France. In 1640 he was appointed pastor in Pilten (Livonia; now Piltene, Latvia). In 1643 he was appointed court chaplain i…

[German Version] Beginning in the 17th century, the early modern notion of progress took on a dynamic that increasingly permeated ethical, religious, and political theory, making the idea of perfectibility a fundamental thought form of the era. In France the word perfectibilité quickly came into use after 1750 and became a guiding principle of the French Revolution. Borrowed into German in the mid-18th century, the concept of anthropological, ethical, and religious perfectibility, extended around 1800 to cultural (Christianity, science…

[German Version] (Dec 22, 1694, Hamburg – Mar 1, 1768, Hamburg), began studying theology, philosophy, and philology at Jena in 1714 and moved to Wittenberg in 1716, where he received his M.A. in 1717 and was appointed adjunct on the philosophical faculty in 1719. From 1720 to 1722 he took a study trip to Leiden, Oxford, and London. After a brief teaching stint in Wittenberg, he was appointed rector of the municipal school in Wismar and in 1728 (not 1727) professor of Hebrew and Oriental languages …

[German Version] (Nov 1, 1714, Tribsees, Swedish Pomerania – May 22, 1804, Berlin). One of the most important Lutheran theologians of the 18th century, revered by his contemporaries as the patriarch of Enlightenment theology for his intellectual honesty, ecclesiastical modernity, and human integrity, Spalding was a pioneer of modern theology. From 1731 to 1733 he studied philosophy and theology in Rostock and afterwards in Greifswald, receiving his Dr.phil. in 1736. From 1745 to 1747 he served as secretary of the Swedish embassy in Berlin, whil…

[German Version] (Jan 20, 1746, Windsheim, Franken – Dec 2, 1792, Jena) became professor of theology and dean in Altdorf in 1772, and professor in Jena in 1782. A proponent of a moderate Enlightenment theology, Döderlein was the only neologist (Enlightenment: II, 4.c) to protest against the Fragmente eines Ungenannten (Anonymous Fragments, 1774–1778) published by G.E. Lessing in writing ( Antifragmente, 1778/79, 21780). Here, he explicitly maintained the resurrection of Jesus as a miraculous proof of his divine commission. His chief work of dogmatics, Institutio theologi christ…

[German Version] (Aug 25, 1740 [not 1741], Bischofswerda – Apr 23, 1792, Nietleben near Halle) studied theology in Leipzig, became lecturer there in 1761, and professor in 1766, followed by Erfurt in 1769 and Gießen in 1771; in 1775, he became director of the Philanthropinum in Marschlins (Graubünden), then General Superintendent of Dürkheim on the Haardt in 1…

[German Version] (Aug 14, 1755, Hiltpoltstein – Jan 13, 1806, Heidelberg). From 1789 professor of eloquence, oriental studies, and ethics and from 1793 professor of Biblical Exegesis at Altdorf. From 1805 professor of oriental studies and practical exegesis; and member of the church council in Heidelberg. Within the theology of the Enlightenment, Bauer was the most important exponent of a strictly historical “biblical theology.” He was the first to call this approach programmatically “historical-critical” ( Historisch-kritische Einleitung in das Alte Testament, 1794, 31806). …

[German Version] I. Translations into Ancient Languages – II. Christian Translations into European Languages since the Middle Ages– III. Translations into Non-European Languages in Modern Times I. Translations into Ancient Languages 1. Translations of the Old Testament into Greek a. The first written translation of the Hebrew Bible, the Septuagint (LXX), owes its name to the circumstance that the Letter of Aristeas refers to 72 elders who had come to Alexandria from Jerusalem in order to translate the Torah of the Jews into…

[German Version] (Mar 18, 1733, Berlin – Aug 1, 1811, Berlin), bookseller and writer. After attending the Gymnasium in Joachimsthal, the Latin school of the Halle orphanage (1745–1748), and Hecker’s Realschule in Berlin (1749) he went to Frankfurt an der Oder in 1749 to learn his father’s bookselling business, continuing his education as an autodidact. In 1752 he joined the staff of the Berlin bookstore and in 1758 took over as director. There he became one of the most important representatives of the (Berlin) Enlightenment …

[German Version] (Aug 24, 1736, Magdeburg – Jan 6, 1822, Quedlinburg), was raised in the Pietist tradition in Bergen monastery under the abbot Johann Adam Steinmetz, but turned to the Enlightenment during his studies in Halle. Beginning in 1757 he held various pastoral positions in Mecklenburg and in 1765 became provost in Waren. His neological restatement of the doctrine of justification, presented in his Wöchentliche Beiträge zur Beförderung der Gottseligkeit [weekly contributions for the promotion of godliness] (2 vols., 1771f.) led in 1773 to conflict with th…

[German Version] (“the three impostors”). In continuation of the religion-critical motif of deceit, known since antiquity, the claim that the three religion-founders Moses, Jesus, and Muḥammad deceived humanity has been in circulation since the Middle Ages (thus in the charge brought by Gregory IX against Emperor Frederick Hohenstaufen). In the late Middle Ages, rumors concerning the existence of a tractate entitled De tribus impostoribus began to spread, leading to numerous attributions and suspicions. The first attested text is the pamphlet De impostoris religionum, which w…

[German Version] (Aug 1, 1723, Coburg –Mar 29, 1778, Halle/Saale), began studies in 1742 in Jena and Leipzig, gained his M.A. (1745), became a teacher in the acadmeic gymnasium in Coburg (1747) and, on the recommendation of J.S. Semler, professor ¶ of theology in Halle (1764), received the Dr.theol. (1766), and married Christine Sophie Francke, a granddaughter of A.H. Francke (1767). Gruner was an independent proponent of neology (Enlightenment: II, 4.c); he sought to return the teaching of the church, transformed by Platonism and Aris…

[German Version] (Sep 15, 1756, Hamelin – Jun 26, 1793, Berlin), writer and versatile philosophical essayist who paradigmatically embodied the intellectual contradictions of his time. Following a depressing childhood, shaped by his separatist and quietist father, Moritz became apprentice to a hatter in 1768; he ended his apprenticeship in 1770 with an attempted suicide. He entered the Hannover Gymnasium in 1771. The year 1776 marked the beginning of several unsuccessful attempts to become an actor…

[German Version] (Oct 16, 1717, Halberstadt – May 19, 1786, Hamburg), studied theology, mathematics and physics at Jena and Halle (1734–1738), received the Dr.theol. (1738), became adjunct professor (1741), deacon in Aschersleben (1744), pastor in Magdeburg (1750), senior pastor at the Katharinenkirche in Hamburg (from 1755) and later Senior in the clerical ministry there (1760–1770). The popular preacher and learned theologian (works include Versuch einer Historie der gedruckten Niedersächsischen Bibeln, 1775) was a ¶ combative proponent of late Lutheran orthodoxy (O…

[German Version] I. Intellectual History – II. Theology and Church History – III. Latin America, Asia, Africa – IV. Missiology I. Intellectual History 1. The Term Equivalents to the term “Enlightenment” are found in all European languages (Dutch verlichting, Fr. les lumières, Germ. Aufklärung, Ital. illuminismo, Span. ilustración). The term is ambiguous almost to the point of equivocation. The history of the German word is especially illuminating. The verb aufklären appears for the first time in Kaspar Stieler's Teutscher Sprachschatz (1691), where it is used in the se…

[German Version] I. To the Reformation – II. Modern Era – III. Present I. To the Reformation The term “edifying literature” (or “devotional literature”) embraces all Christian literature that is not liturgical, juristic, merely informative, or scholarly (history, theology) but is meant to edify and encourage piety and Christian conduct. But the boundaries distinguishing e…

[German Version] (“Friends of Truth”). In 1736, Ernst Christoph Graf von Manteuffel, sometime cabinet minister of Saxony, J.G. Reinbeck, provost of Berlin, and Ambrosius Haude, a bookseller, founded the Societas Alethophilorum in Berlin. There were soon daughter societies, especially in the territory of Saxony (including Weissenfels, Leipzig, and …

[German Version] (Sep 21, 1738, Züllichau – Feb 3, 1809, Frankfurt an der Oder), was educated in the school at Kloster Bergen; he counteracted its culture of Pietism and transitional theology by privately reading the philosophers of the Enlightenment, including J. Locke and Voltaire. He went on to study theology in Halle (S.J. Baumgarten) and Frankfurt an der Oder ( J.G. Toellner). After teaching in Berlin and Züllichau, in 1774 he was appointed director of the Züllichau orphanage as well as professor of philosophy and associate professor of theology in ¶ Frankfurt; he was promoted t…

[German Version] I. Concept, Presuppositions – II. Development – III. Middle Eastern Church History and Historiography – IV. Religious Education I. Concept, Presuppositions 1. Concept The concept of church history has not yet been studied sufficiently, but it is already clear that since antiquity extraordinarily different conceptions of Christian historiography have been in simultaneous competition over the interpretation of past, present, and future. Often the different methodological option…