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[German Version] See also Heavenly voice, Memra, Revelation. I. Religious Studies Humans experience messages from the deity or divine beings (Inspiration/Theopneusty, Revelation) in the form of speech. Formally we must distinguish (a) the word of the deity himself, as recorded in sacred scripture after a phase of oral transmission (Torah, Qurʾān, Vedas, Avesta); (b) words communicated by individuals specially chosen and called by God (the word that calls); (c) words spoken by elect individuals having a spe…

[German Version] The book of Lamentations is a collection of five elegies on the destruction of Jerusalem: four alphabetic acrostics (Lam 1–4) and one poem with the same number of verses as the Hebrew alphabet (Lam 5). In the Hebrew Bible the book is called אֵיכָה/ʾ êkāh, “How…,” for the first word in chs. 1, 2, and 4. In the Talmud ( b. B. Bat. 15a) it is called קִינוֹת/ qînôt, “Lamentations,” and ascribed to the prophet Jeremiah to vouch for its canonicity. This tradition may be based on 2 Chron 35:25, which says that Jeremiah sang a lament for Josiah, which is r…

[German Version] Gideon, the most important of the major deliverer figures in the biblical book of Judges (Judg 6–8; Deuteronomistic History). The core of the tradition is the anecdote about how Gideon succeeded in cunningly driving out a military encampment of the Midianites that had intruded into the Plain of Jezreel: he surrounded the camp with his men, all blew their horns ¶ and smashed jugs simultaneously. The Midianites believed that they were facing a superior enemy and fled. Gideon pursued them beyond the Jordan and captured their leaders Zebah and …

[English Version] I. Religionsgeschichtlich Der Mensch erlebt die Übermittlung von Botschaften durch die Gottheit, durch göttliche Wesen (Inspiration, Offenbarung) in der Form, daß diese zu ihm sprechen. Formal ist hierbei zu unterscheiden, ob es sich um W. der Gottheit selbst handelt, wie sie in sakralen Schriften nach einer Phase der mündlichen Tradierung verschriftlicht sind (Tora, Koran, Veden, Avesta), übermittelt von dazu von Gott auserwählten und berufenen Personen (das berufende W.), oder o…