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[German Version] I. Literary History 1. Unlike fairy tales, which are set in a fictional world that takes wonders for granted, tales (Ger. Sagen) and legends recount the irruption of miracles and wonders into the real world. Tales treat this irruption as a mysterious and terrifying experience, while legends embed it in a religiously structured explanatory context. 2. The etymology of the terms tale and legend points to two different forms of transmission: oral in the case of tales (“what is told”) and sagas (“what is said”), written in the case of legends (Lat. legenda, “what is to be re…

[German Version] (Jul 25, 1794, Hamburg – Apr 1, 1859, Hamburg), a pioneer of organized diakonia. After the early death of her mother, she grew up in the house of her father, a Hamburg merchant and alderman who lost his fortune in the economic crises of the period. When he died in 1809, friends and relative took the children in. Sieveking defrayed the costs of her upkeep through her own ¶ handiwork and later through small legacies. At the age of 19, she established a small school; she kept up a lively correspondence with her brother Gustav, who was studying theolog…

[German Version] (Feb 17, 1826, Osnabrück – Dec 15, 1901, Hanover), high-ranking church official and university theologian. Uhlhorn grew up in modest circumstances. Municipal scholarships enabled him to study theology at Göttingen, where he was influenced by G.C.F. Lücke and F.A.E. Ehrenfeuchter. He earned his habilitation in 1852 with a thesis on Tertullian and stepped into the controversy aroused by F.C. Baur’s interpretation of primitive Christianity with several publications. After his initial…

[German Version] Verband akademisch gebildeter evangelischer Religionslehrer Deutschlands/Preußens (Union of Academically Trained Evangelical Teachers of Religion in Germany/Prussia), a union of religion teachers with great influence on ecclesiastical and educational policy. The founding of the union in 1914 capped a decades-long process, during which teachers of religion in the Prussian provinces had been organizing since the 1870s. Supported by civil and ecclesiastical authorities, the conferenc…