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[German Version] (cf. Āśrama) Christian ashrams are found in India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. They are places for religious observance, reflection, and a spiritual life deepened by prayer and meditation. They involve small groups of men and/or women who give concrete shape to the Christian faith in the context of their own culture and social environment. They prac…

[German Version] I. Concept – II. Old Testament – III. New Testament – IV. Dogmatics – V. Practical

[German Version] (Oct 7, 1909, Berlin – Jun 11, 2000, Heidelberg), Old Testament scholar. His father Diedrich Westermann was a specialist in African languages. After schooling and university studies, he served in the Confessing Church; after military service and imprisonment, he served as a pastor in (West) Berlin, where after 1949 he also taught as a lecturer in the theological seminary, being appointed professor in 1954. From 1958 until his retirement in 1977, he was a professor in the faculty o…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies – II. Old Testament – III. New Testament – IV. History of Dogma – V. Dogmatics – VI. Ethics – VII. Philosophy of Religion – VIII. Judaism – IX. Islam (cf. Present and Future Eschatology, Consistent Eschatology) I. Religious Studies 1. The Problem of Terminology Eschatology (“discourse” or “doctrine” [Gk λόγος/ lógos] concerning the “last things” [Gk ἔσχατα/ éschata]) is a neologism that was introduced in the late 18th century in the con- text of the definition of the “last things,” i.e. of the novissima of medieval theology (death, resurrection, divine judgment, final destiny [Providence]). Eschatology became a major topic of philosophical and theological …

[German Version] I. Place and Date While individual poems like Song 1:9–11 may go back to the preexilic period, collections, redaction(s), and linguistic revision(s) date from just before and especially during the 3rd century …

[German Version] I. Religious Studies – II. History – III. Philosophy of Religion – IV. Fundamental Theology. – V. Missiology …

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[German Version] (May 22, Radhanagar, Bengal – Sep 27, 1833, Bristol, England). During the era of British colonial rule in India, Roy was an advocate of religious and social reforms in Hinduism. Drawing on Vedānta and the Upaniṣads while appealing to reason and common sense, Roy argued for aniconic worship of the one God and a philanthropic ethics, which he defended against both Western and Hindu traditionalist critics as original, authentic features of Hinduism. At the same time, he called for o…

[German Version] (Aug 2, 1832, Orange, NJ – Feb 17, 1907, Adyar near Madras). Olcott grew up in a Presbyterian family. As a young man he turned to spiritualist circles (Spiritualism). Following a career as a journalist (from 1853), he was an agricultural expert, an officer of the Union in the American Civil War (1861–1865), and an attorney (from 1868). In 1875, he, together with H.P. Blavatsky, founded in New York the …

[German Version] I. General Survey 1. Origin and classification. Like the Indo-European and Hamitic languages, the Semitic languages are inflectional; in contrast to isolating and agglutinative languages, they can change the form of a root, for example Arabic singular rūḥ, “spirit, breath,” plural ʾ arwāḥ. The relationship between the Semitic and Hamitic languages is clearly the product of prehistoric migrations of groups speaking proto-Afro-Asiatic (formerly called Hamito-Semitic) from North Africa – from a Sahara still “green” from the 7th through the 4th millennia – through Syria to Mesopotamia, where at least by the beginning of the 3rd millennium they had established the earliest Semitic stratum in Sumerian, even before the Akkadians. It is reasonable to speak of “proto-Semitic” if it is understood as the embodiment of features common to many Semitic languages, not yet differentiated systematically, but without any hist…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies – II. Old Testament. – III. New Testament – IV. Philosophy of Religion – V. Dogmatics I. Religious Studies Monotheistic ideas of God, which take as their starting point the existence and activity of a single God, have long dominated the understanding of religion in historically Christian Europe. The term …

[German Version] (1862, Karazgāon, Ratnāgiri district – May 9, 1919, Bombay [Mumbai]). Tilak’s father, a Chitpavan-Brahmin, was a registrar. Tilak studied Sanskrit with a Vedic scholar and attended an English highschool for two years. His literary gifts were apparent early on. In 1880 he married Manubai (later Kaks…

[German Version] (real name Bhavani Charan Banerjee; Feb 11, 1861, Khanyan, Bengal – Oct 27, 1907, Calcutta [Kolkata]). Upadhyaya’s father, a Brahmin, was a police inspector in British service. Upadhyaya attended English schools and colleges as well as a traditional Sanskrit school. He became familiar with Christianity through his uncle, the Protestant pastor Kalicharan Banerjee (1847–1907) and the Brāhmo Samāj, which he joined in 1887. He worked as a teacher and journalist, publishing his own per…

[German Version] (honorific title meaning “great self,” actual name: Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi; Oct 2, 1869, Porbandar, India – Jan 30, 1948, …