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Blasphemy (Gk., blasphemía, ‘abuse’ e.g., verbal; also ‘abuse of God’) is disparagement of God. The status of blasphemy is indicated in Jewish and Roman law themselves. It was adopted by the medieval imperial and canonical codes from Justinian's …

The word ‘holy,’ or ‘sacred,’ denotes an area completely bounded off from the everyday (‘profane’), and simply never to be available to the human being. Accordingly, special rules are in force for dealing with sacred objects, buildings, and persons. A type of theory of the Holy attributes the latter to other quantities, for example, sociologically to society (Durkheim), or to aggression (Girard) in anthropological sociology. On the other hand, the Holy can be conceived as a category of its own, incapable of reduction, as in the pheno…

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[German Version] I. Religious Studies Piety (recently often also “spirituality”) is understood, first, as the forms of expression of lived religiosity; research in this area is particularly the subject of folklore studies and church history for the idividual, secondly, piety has to do with particular qualities of feeling, such as reverence, with which the psychology of religion (Gruehn, Sundén) is concerned. Objective and subjective components are combined in various ways in the historical developme…

[German Version] I. Alchemy denotes a particular craft knowledge used first of all for transforming metals; however, its goal was not only the perfecting of the material but also of the human being (e.g. healing or immortality). The origins of Western alchemy are found in Antiquity; in the earliest literary sources (3rd cent. ce) Greek philosophy of nature played as much a part as Hellenistic astrology, Gnosis and mythology. Reciprocal contacts and influences between comparable …

[German Version] I. Sociology – II. Comparative Study of Religions – III. Ethics I. Sociology “Elite” – from Lat. eligere “to elect” – designates a select group of persons …

[German Version] I. Science of Religion – II. Philosophy – III. Practical Theology I. Science of Religion A functional analysis describes the parts of a system on the basis of their function for the whole. Pioneered by É…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies – II. Old Testament – III. Judaism – IV. New Testament – V. Church History – VI. Dogmatics and Ethics I. Religious Studies Humility is an attitude of conscious abasement (Humiliation) and submission. Some modes of expressing humility, such as postures or gestures, can be traced to biological roots; others are conventional, for example a “humble glance” or fo…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies As with other divine attributes, t…

[German Version] I.  History of Religion – II.  Biography and Religion – III.  Autobiography and Religion – IV.  Practical Theology and Education I. History of Religion The term biography denotes the life history of an individual, both in regard to its external course and in regard ¶ to spiritual and mental development. In a narrower sense biography is the narrative, whether oral or written, of curricula vitae. It is not always possible to separate it from the genre of legend of more episodic structure. In contrast…

[German Version] Divine jealousy is especially evident in Greek mythology (ϕϑόνος ϑεῶν/ phthónos theōn) and is a psychological and anthropomorphic characterization of the gods who are anxious to pr…

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[English Version] I. ReligionswissenschaftlichWie andere Eigenschaften Gottes ist der Z.G. (vgl. Zorn) ein Anthropomorphismus, der sich in der Ikonographie (: I.; z.B. Thangkas [tʾan˙ Ka] in Tibet), aber v.a. in der Mythologie vieler Rel. findet und dort zu diversen Verwicklungen des Geschehens führt. In der griech. Mythologie z.B. schickt der von Prometheus hintergangene Zeus im Z. den Menschen die Büchse der Pandora und bringt so das Übel in die Welt.Je nach Situation kann der Z.G. Willkür oder Berechenbarkeit der Götter versinnbildlichen und sich für den Men…