History of religions school
The name Religionsgeschichtliche school is a group of German Protestant theologians who mainly habilitated himself in 1890 in Göttingen.
Your circle consisted of Bernhard Duhm (1873 ), Albert Eichhorn ( 1856-1926; 1886), Hermann Gunkel (1888), John White (1888 ), Wilhelm Bousset (1890 ), Alfred Rahlfs (1891 ), Ernst Troeltsch (1891 ), William Wrede (1891 ), Heinrich Hackmann (1893 ) and the later habilitated Rudolf Otto ( 1898), Hugo Greßmann (1902 ) and Wilhelm Heitmüller (1902 ). Conceptually related to their environment included Carl Mirbt (1888), Carl Clemen (1892 ), Heinrich Weinel (1899 ) and - at least at a young age - the Swiss Paul Wernle ( 1897).
Initially influenced by Albrecht Ritschl, they completed soon aware of the move away from its dogmatic considerations on the foot Direction of historical-critical exegesis of the Bible. Under recording by philological and Classical Studies approaches the members of that school were in favor of a radical historicism in theological research, presented the Bible and simultaneously generated early Christian testimonies in a universal intellectual and cultural historical context. It tries Jewish, Babylonian, Persian and Hellenistic influences was demonstrated on the emerging Christianity. Consistently this approach led to an increased preoccupation with foreign religions. A comparison of the different religions together, however, was not sought; the effort was alone understanding the origin of Christianity by studying the detectable in him outside influences.
The meaning of the History of Religions school now extended far beyond intra- theological range. Constitutive was the ambition of their representatives, making it accessible to the partially revolutionary results of their research to the widest possible public. This was based on the conviction that the popular mediation of their theological research results in an extension of the religious consciousness must lead in broad sectors of the population. So they developed a lively lectures. Your popular science publications - book series such as the " History of Religions chapbooks ," the " life issues" that " research on religion and literature of the Old and New Testaments " ( FRLANT ) or the "Göttingen Bible work", but also their great lexicon work "Religion in History and Present " ( RGG ) - found after the turn of the century brisk sales.
The move away from historicism in the Protestant theology led after the First World War, the decline of the History of Religions school, especially since several of their leaders had died early. But they have developed and theology established terms like " tradition history ", " form history ", " Sitz im Leben ", " late Judaism ", " Hellenistic community " refer to a still ongoing influence.
Due to a cautious return to the questions of theological historicism in today's " postdialektischen " period of German theology, but find the research approaches of the " History of Religions School" renewed interest.