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[German Version] I. Religious Studies – II. Old Testament – III. New Testament – IV. Church History – V. Systematic Theology – VI. Law – VII. Judaism I. Religious Studies 1. The use of the term grace has been influenced strongly by the historically innovative Pauline conception. For Paul, grace is a gift, a unique fruit of God's salvific purpose and redemptive action. After the analogy of other redemptive religions, Paul employed this term to denote a fundamental aspect of the salvific action of the deity. In other religion…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies and History of Philosophy The dogmatic definition of the Holy Spirit as a person within the one divine substance (Trinity/Doctrine of the Trinity) presupposes not only a particular philosophical context but also a religio-historical horizon. A formative influence on the conceptualization of the Holy Spirit was exercised by the various anthropomorphic interpretations of elemental anthropological or normative qualities in the context of polytheistic interpretations of …

[German Version] I. Religious Studies – II. Old Testament – III. Early Judaism – IV. New Testament – V. Dogmatics I. Religious Studies 1. The judgment discussed here is not in response to a specific transgression or lapse on the part of an individual; it is a judgment upon his or her entire life, taking place only after death and determining the fate of the ¶ deceased in the next world. Because this notion implies the idea of a just recompense, it has the quality and function of a theodicy that seeks…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies – II. Old Testament – III. New Testament – IV. Church History – V. Dogmatics – VI. Judaism – VII. Islam – VIII. Buddhism – IX. Contemporary Art I. Religious Studies 1. Hell as a place of retribution in the afterlife for those who continually transgress the religiously sanctioned rules of their community is not specifically Christian or monotheistic. But it is also not an idea that springs automatically from the question of how the dead exist (Death). Although hell was long viewed as a…

[German Version] I. Judaism 1. Antiquity. The Trisagion from Isa 6:3 (Heb. Qedusha, Q ) appears in three places in the synagogal liturgy (VII; see also Worship: II, 3), sometimes in combination with Ezek 3:12 and Ps 146:10: (1) as an interpolation in the third benediction of the ʿAmida ( Q. ha-ʿAmida), (2) in the first benediction of the Shemaʿ ( Q. ha-Yotser), and (3) after the weekly portion ( Q. de-Sidra). The origin and relative age of the individual forms of the Qedusha are disputed; its absence in the liturgical texts from Qumran is noteworthy (esp. the Sabbath Songs). A dating of the e…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies 1. Phenomenology Western, Christian connotations of the concept of the soul, imposed on the religio-historical evidence by outside studies, must be generally excluded if the soul is understood as the principle of manifestations of life that are perceptible (or culturally considered to be perceptible), although they are rarely categorized under a common umbrella term. It is therefore reasonable to speak of a multiplicity of souls – for example four among the Ob-Ugrians (Hasenfratz, Einführung, 38–41), five among the Proto-Germanic peoples ( ib…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies – II. History of Religions – III. Philosophy of Religion – IV. Art History I. Religious Studies All cultures have concepts of a hereafter or beyond (“the next world”), although they are extremely diverse. They involve a realm of existence different from the visible earthly world but nevertheless thought of as real. Concepts of the hereafter are part of cosmology and therefore are related to the real world: the hereafter may be localized above or below the earth, in inaccessib…

[German Version] I. Old Testament – II. New Testament – III. Christianity – IV. Judaism – V. Islam I. Old Testament 1. God's love The notion of YHWH's love (in Heb. primarily derivatives of the root אהב/ ʾhb) for his people first appears in the book of the prophet Hosea, where God's love is cited as the “ground of divine election” (Jenni) in response to challenges to the election (I) of Israel by God (Hos 1:9). Hosea uses the image of a father's love (11:1; cf. also 11:4); despite his son's disobedience, he cannot give him up …

[German Version] I. Religious Studies – II. History of Religions – III. Old Testament – IV. New Testament – V. Philosophy of Religion – VI. Dogmatics – VII. Judaism ¶ I. Religious Studies Concepts of the hereafter do not, of themselves, necessarily contain statements concerning eternal life. On the contrary, concepts of the hereafter develop with dynamics of their own and thus variability. Eternal life and …

[German Version] I. The Concept Pre-existence refers to the existence of deities, persons, or objects prior to the world or the earth. All religions in which the deity is not subsumed into time espouse the notion of the deity’s real pre-existence, because entrance into the course of time brings forth only knowledge of the deity without affecting the deity’s being. It is in this context that we also speak of the pre-existence of Christ. In Greek philosophy, which influenced early Christianity, the no…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies and History of Religions – II. Death and the Realm of the Dead in the Old Testament – III. Judaism – IV. New Testament – V. Philosophy – VI. Philosophy of Religion – VII. History of Dogma and Dogmatics – VIII. Ethics – IX. Practical Theology – X. Art – XI. Islam – XII. Buddhism – XIII. Hinduism I. Religious Studies and History of Religions 1. General Modern religious criticism regards religion as compensation for human anxiety in the face of death. …

[German Version] I. Religious Studies – II. Old Testament – III. New Testament – IV. Philosophy of Religion – V. Dogmatics – VI. Practical Theology – VII. Missiology – VIII. Art – IX. Judaism – X. Islam I. Religious Studies 1. It is fundamentally true that God is not an object of religious studies, since God – as theology teaches – cannot be made an object of empirical scientific study. Religious studies can only address the concepts that human beings have expressed concerning their God (or gods: God, Representations and sym…

[German Version] I. Old Testament – II. Judaism – III. New Testament – IV. Christianity I. Old Testament Elijah, an Israelite prophet in the 9th century bce, was from transjordanian Tishbe in Gilead (not yet located with certainty); consequently, he bore the nickname “the Tishbite,” but only rarely the title “prophet.” He appeared in the Northern Kingdom and was active under kings Ahab (871–852) and Ahaziah (852–851). He is said not to have died but to have been taken up by God to heaven. The traditions concerning Elijah occur in 1 Kgs 17–19; 21; …

[German Version] I. Philosophy Neoplatonism takes the system constructed by Plotinus as its starting point. Important representatives are Amelios, Porphyry, Iamblichus, Theodore of Asine, Emperor Julian the Apostate, Plutarch of Athens, Syrian, Proclus, Damascius, and Simplicius. Pagan Neoplatonism ends institutionally with the closing of the Academy by Emperor Justinian I in 529 ce. 1. Self-understanding. Neoplatonism understands itself as an interpretation and renewal of the genuine philosophy of Plato (Platonism). No conscious distinction is made…

Der postum veröffentlichte, unvollendet gebliebene Roman Schira von Samuel Joseph Agnon (1887–1970) zählt zu den Klassikern der modernen hebräischen Literatur. Die Erzählungen und Romane Agnons, der 1966 gemeinsam mit Nelly Sachs (Todesfuge) den Nobelpreis für Literatur erhielt, prägten wesentlich die formative Entwicklung des modernen Hebräisch wie auch die hebräische Literatur als Ganzes. Agnon, im habsburgischen Galizien geboren und durch Sozialisation und Reisen mit den unter…

The novel Shira by Samuel Joseph Agnon (1887–1970), which remained unfinished and was posthumously published, is one of the classics of modern Hebrew literature. The stories and novels by Agnon, who received the Nobel Prize in 1966 together with Nelly Sachs (Todesfuge), had an essential influence on the formative development of modern Hebrew, as well as on Hebrew literature as a whole. Agnon was born in Habsburg Galicia and was familiar with the varied life worlds of Jews in Eastern Europe and in …