Search

[German Version] (Dec 30, 1905 [Jan 12, 1906 Old Style], Kaunas, Lithuania – Dec 25, 1995, Paris). Lévinas, a phenomenologist in the tradition of E. Husserl and M. Heidegger, productively utilized Jewish tradition to develop a “philosophy of the face.” Lévinas's family was Jewish; he grew up with the Bible and the classic Russian authors. In 1923 he moved to Strasbourg, where he studied philosophy. In 1928/1929 he spent a year in Freiburg studying with Husserl and Heidegger. After receiving his de…

[German Version] ( liber naturae, liber vitae). In the more limited sense, liber vitae refers to the Holy Scriptures, in the broader sense, the tradition of literate culture; liber naturae refers, in terms of the logic of origins, to the tangible revelation of God in the creation accounts, but then also to the basic self-evident phenomena of everyday life (“that is, after all, quite natural”), the pre-predicative world faith (E. Husserl). The book metaphor traces back to the notion of God as author. The earliest example occurs in Plotinus ( Enarrationes III 2, 17, 16ff.); the topos w…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies – II. Philosophy – III. Philosophy of Religion I. Religious Studies Images are among the oldest and simplest human expressions which can “survive” their original communicative setting. It is this relative independence of their origin which in religious contexts has led to attribute an efficacy to sketches, colorful murals (Art and Religion, Prehistoric art), as well as to the three-dimensional statue, which significantly exceeds the possibilities and intentions of the pr…

[German Version] I. Philosophy – II. Philosophy of Religion – III. Dogmatics – IV. Ethics I. Philosophy Until G.W.F. Hegel, otherness is a basic provision of finitude. The concept “otherness = the other” acquires a specially personal and anthropological significance for the predecessors of “I-thou” philosophy. In a letter of 1781 to J.C. Lavater, F.H. Jacobi discovers the meaning of the other, or “thou,” for the human development of the solitary “I” subject: “I open eye or ear, or I stretch out my hand, and in that very instant I feel inseparably: thou a…

[German Version] I. History of Religion – II. Church History – III. Fundamental Theology – IV. Orthodox Law – V. Eastern Poetry – VI. Islam – VII. Buddhism – VIII. Taoism I. History of Religion The canon can be defined as a complex process of selection of documents regarded as authoritative; from the totality of the extant written tradition, documents are set apart according to certain criteria as holy or inspired (Inspiration/Theopneustia). Although the concept of the canon as a normative collection…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies Writing as a sociocultural and political phenomenon is characterized by the expansion of writing skills within a culture. With the emergence of major writing systems (Paleography), the process of reducing communication to writing began, coupled with specific forms of communication. Also related were the profession of the scribe, scribal training, the development of writing materials, and libraries. From the outset, the agents of written material were scholarly circles, religious officials, priests, and scribes (soferim…

[English Version] I. Religionswissenschaftlich Sch. als soziokulturelles und polit. Phänomen ist durch den Ausbau schriftkultureller Verhältnisse gekennzeichnet. Mit dem Entstehen der großen Schriftsysteme (Paläographie) setzen daher der Verschriftlichungsprozeß und entsprechend spezifische Kommunikationsformen ein. Damit verbunden sind auch der Beruf des Schreibers, eine entsprechende Ausbildung sowie die Entwicklung des Schreibmaterials und der Bibliotheken. Träger von Sch. rel. Traditionen sind von Anfang an gelehrte Kreise, rel. Beamte, Prie…