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1. Term From Thales, the Greeks believed that “all things are full of gods” (Aristotle, De anima 1.5, 411a8–9; Aristotelianism). Only in concrete cases, however, did they call this idea polytheism (e.g., Aeschylus Supp.  424 mentions polytheos hedra, “seat of many gods,” for an altar; Greek Religion). Neither they nor other peoples made of polytheism an abstract concept. The Jews did so when, distancing themselves from polytheism, they criticized the lovers of polytheïa (Philo De mut. nom.  205). So too did Christians, for whom Orpheus taught the Greek polytheotēs (thus the asc…

1. Term Monotheism is a religious, theological, or philosophical position whose normative feature is recognition of only one God. Those who use the term “monotheism” in either confession or research are differentiating between different views of God. Like other isms, this term also tends to denote a movement, sphere, or epoch in which, whether the respective inhabitants or contemporaries use the term or not, a specific outlook or opinion prevails. Whether those who define their own position claim the validity of t…

¶ “Theogony” (Gk. theogonia, “birth of the gods”), the title of an epic poem by Hesiod (ca. 700 b.c.), refers to the origin of the gods. Many of the almost 300 gods whose names and qualities Hesiod gives in this work make up the world, so that a theogony is also a cosmogony. When the world is constituted, it is ruled by the great gods (Uranus, Cronus, Zeus). Hesiod makes use here of the concept that northern Syria and Asia Minor employed: a succession of gods instead of a genealogical list or an anthropomorphizin…

1. Founder Abhay Charan De (1896–1977), founder of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), was born in Calcutta, where he received university training in philosophy, English, and economics. In 1922 he came in contact with the Vishnu Gaudiya Mission (Hinduism 3.3), whose founder, Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura (d. 1937), had prepared the way for the worldwide work of the 32d guru in a succession that had begun with the prehistorical avatars, or “descents,” of the gods (see 3). In 1933 De became a formal disciple of B…

1. History The Yezidis are a religious community in the Syrian district of Simʿān and across to Ossetia. Though not unlike Iraqi Arabs, their Kurdish dialect (Kurds) and distinctive tradition make them a distinct ethnic group. Around 1900 they numbered up to 300,000, but after World War I only 100,000 and by 1983 only around 20,000. In 2005 estimates of the number of Yezidis worldwide ranged up to several times this reduced figure, mainly in Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and Armenia, with a sizable group in Germany as guest workers. Yezidis call themselves Dāsin (pl. Dawāsin; Syr. Dasnīyē), after a…

1. Religious History 1.1. Variety of Terms and Views The word “soul” (cf. Ger. Seele) embraces the meanings of many other words with a history of their own. These meanings differ not only in ancient cultures but also among themselves. They stand for various human experiences, of which we no longer know whether they were as numerous as the terms used—but do know that historically they represent basic realities of existence. A common feature of these realities is that they are regarded as essentially different from the materials of which we and nature and our world are composed. We may divide …

1. Names Kurdistan, originally a term for “steppe country” and later for the land of the Kurds, was the term given by the Seljuk government of Iran (1092–1194) to a region that must have stretched from between Lakes Van (in present-day western Turkey) and Urmia (in eastern Iran) south to the Zagros Mountains (extending along the Iran-Iraq border). The basic word came to be used, as in Arabic, as a collective and denoted “tiller of the field” or “shepherd.” Today some scholars identify the Kurds as the Karduchoi of Xenophon’s Anabasis (3.5.15–4.1.11), a group living east of the Upper T…

1. General 1.1. Words and Concept The English words “sacrifice” and “offering” come from Lat. sacrificium and offero. Ger. Opfer goes back to Lat. operari, “be active.” The terms suggest an active relation to the reality concerned in the different religions. The various ways in which the relation is described may thus affect the concept. Even though a distinction might arise between real and symbolic sacrifice, sacrifice is always at the heart of religion and widely influences human conduct in other spheres as well. In religious history we may un…

Meaning “way of blessedness” in Sanskrit, Ānanda Mārga is the name of a Hindu reforming movement that was started in 1955 at Jamalpur, in Bihar, India. Its originator was Prabhata Ranjana Sarkar (b. 1921), who called himself Shree Ānanda-murti, and to whom his followers attached a further title “shree.” With the Ānanda he thought of himself as a member of the classical Vedanta triad sat (being), chit (thought), and nanda (bliss), which, as attributes of Atman or Brahman, compose the true nature of humanity and the univers…

“Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh” is the guru name of Rajneesh Chandra Mohan (1931–81). It combines with the given name “Rajneesh” the appellative “Bhagwan,” commonly used in India for gods, demigods, and holy men (from Skt. bhag(a)van, meaning “reverend” or “divine”), and…

Afghanistan became a separate kingdom under Aḥmad Shāh Durrāni (ruled 1747–73), who, as an officer of Nāder Shāh of Persia, left the army and was able to build his small Pashtuni state on the subjection of various ethnic groups in northeast Iran and central Asia. About 90 percent of the present-day population are rural peasants or nomads. Approximately 78 percent belong to the Sunni branch of Islam, 20 percent are Shiites, and 1 percent are Ismailis. The rest consist …

1. Term The prophets of Israel with their criticism of Canaanite worship, as well as the philosophers of antiquity with their attacks on Greek myths, held aloof from what we now call religion, an attitude that is essential in the study of religion. The same applies to Islamic geographers, Christian missionaries,…

Yoga, the Vedic term for “exertion,” “strain,” or “venture” (related to Gk. zygon and Lat. iugum, “yoke”), is a technical term used in various senses. 1. In a less technical sense yoga has to do with forms of trance (Ecsta…

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1. Basic Considerations 1.1. Distinctions No systematic hermeneutical examination of miracles in the larger sense can avoid articulating exactly which elements are to be addressed as objective facts and which as part of the concept itself. Because arguments on the two sides can no longer be adduced in support of one another, the modes in which the two aspects are examined necessarily also diverge. The remaining conceptual content prompts even further distinctions, depending on whether one is dealing with a simple or a complex concept. Only simple concepts must derive directly from reality and are able to illuminate some part of the latter and make it more comprehensible. Complex concepts do not need to be commensurate with reality.…

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