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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…

[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 science, soci…