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Overview Eschatology is traditionally the doctrine of the last things (from Gk. eschatos, denoting what is last in time). It is of particular interest in modern theology, which speaks of a new phase and of the “eschatologizing” of all theology. At the same time, the haziness of the term (it is also used outside theology) and its varied use seem to make it an example of linguistic confusion in theology. The word was used first by the strict Lutheran theologian Abraham Calovius (1612–86), who, at the end of his 12-volume dogmatics, dealt with death, resurrection, t…

1. Ideas of God in the Religions Ideas are phenomena. We may interpret them in broader social and intellectual contexts, but they also speak for themselves in images, words, names, and texts. Even when deity is their content, they can display only themselves, not show whether revelation or merely human imagination underlies them, though this observation does not mean that we can rule out divine revelation. To speak of an idea of God tacitly presupposes horizontal comparison between societies and cultures. We set different ideas of God on different levels, thou…

The divine name “YHWH” occurs over 6,800 times in the OT either alone or in combination (e.g., “house of Yahweh” or “word of Yahweh”). That it was pronounced “Yahweh” is shown by Greek transcriptions. It came to be regarded as unspeakably holy, and so to avoid use of the name it was furnished with the vowels of ʾădônāi, “my Lord, my lords” (cf. LXX kyrios), which led to the mixed form “Jehovah.” It had already ceased to be used much in the later OT, not occurring at all in Ecclesiastes, Esther, or Song of Solomon (a short form in 8:6?). We also do not find it in Job 3–27 (12:9 being a scribal error), a…