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1. Name, Place in Canon, Authorship The Book of Lamentations consists of five songs. The book’s usual name in modern Bible versions comes, by way of the Vg (Lamentationes) and t…

1. Description The Book of Proverbs, together with the Books of Job and Ecclesiastes, belongs to the Wisdom books of the Hebrew Bible. It thus belongs to a literary category that was widespread and greatly enjoyed in the ancient world because it transmitted the experience of past generations about the right ways of dealing with God and others. By means of its sayings and teachings, it promised a life (§1) that would be long, happy, and successful. Because Solomon traditionally ranked as the wisest king of Israel (§1.4, 1 Kgs. 4:29–34 and 10:1–10), the Wisdom books up to the deuterocanonical Wisdom of Solomon and the Psalms of Solomon were ascribed to him (Apocrypha 1.3.12; Pseudepigrapha 1.1.8). Hence the final redactors of the Book of Proverbs also ascribed this book to Solomon, even though the Egyptianizing teaching in 22:17–24:22 and its addendum in 24:23–34 are described as “the sayings of the wise,” chap. 30 as “the words of Agur son of …

[German Version] I. Terminology – II. Old Testament – III. New Testament – IV. Systematic Theology – V. Practical Theology – VI. Judaism – VII. Islam I. Terminology 1. Religious Studies a. As an emic linguistic term, “faith” is found not only in the context of the Christian West (cf. fides, foi, Glaube, etc.), but also in other religious traditions. The Sanskrit term śraddhā (cf. Pāli saddhā; Avestan zrazdā-) seems to represent an Indo-European etymological pendant to Lat. credo, as demonstrated by the possible reconstruction of Indo-Germanic * k'red-dhē-, “set one's heart o…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies 1. Concept. The word revelation echoes the Greek ἀποκάλυψις/ apokálypsis (“uncovering”), which was translated into Latin as revelatio and then borrowed into most European languages. The literal meaning already indicates that revelation involves a reality, content, more specifically a message hidden from mortals. Revelation is important: it is relevant religious knowledge necessary for salvation, for finding meaning, and for dealing with everyday life. It is knowledge that peo-¶ ple do not already possess by nature, and their religion says they cannot attain it by themselves. This aspect received increasing emphasis in the course of the modern era and revelation came to function as a key theological concept, which also served to distinguish theology from religious studies (Wiedenhofer), but this term with its Christian background also came to be used in the context of non-Christian religions. More recent academic reference works have tended to use the term more narrowly…

[German Version] I. Old Testament – II. New Testament – III. Early Judaism – IV. Church History – V. Philosophy – VI. Philosophy of Religion – VII. Dogmatics – VIII. Ethics – IX. Sociology, Politics, and Law I. Old Testament 1. The concept of political freedom, which originated in the Greek polis (City cult), first appeared in Hellenistic Jewish historiography. The Stoics' concept of freedom, which contrasts inner freedom and outward constraint, has no counterpart…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies / History of Religions – II. Old Testament – III. New Testament – IV. Dogmatics – V. Ethics I. Religious Studies / History of Religions Various versions of the Greek Prometheus myth characterize hope ( elpís) as one of the requirements for human existence (Hesiod Opera et dies V 96; Aesch. Prometheus V 250). In Roman religion, hope ( spes) is one of the concepts personified and venerated as divine powers (Cic. De legibus II 28). It seems reasonable to assume that religious hope differs fro…

[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…

[English Version] I. Religionswissenschaftlich 1.  BegriffDas Wort O. ist die Wiedergabe des griech. α᾿ποκα´λυψις/apoka´lypsis (»Enthüllung«), das ins Lat. mit revelatio übers. und dann als Lehnwort in die meisten eur. Sprachen übernommen wurde. Allein am Wortsinn ist abzulesen, daß es sich dabei um eine Realität, um einen Inhalt, im engeren Sinn um eine Botschaft handelt, die zuvor dem Menschen verborgen war. Deren Wichtigkeit kommt dadurch zum Ausdruck, daß es ein für das Heil, die Sinnfindung, des weiter…