Reading Certainty

Reading Certainty PDF

Author: Ralph Keen

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2022-11-28

Total Pages: 335

ISBN-13: 9004527842

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Susan Schreiner’s students and colleagues explore the themes of Scriptural exegesis, authority, and the certainty or doubt of salvation in the early modern era and beyond.

Prophecy, Madness, and Holy War in Early Modern Europe

Prophecy, Madness, and Holy War in Early Modern Europe PDF

Author: Leigh T. I. Penman

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2023-05-16

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 019762393X

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"This book documents the political and religious turmoil of seventeenth century Europe by exploring the life and doctrines of the German barber surgeon turned prophet, Ludwig Friedrich Gifftheil (1595-1661). Inspired by family tragedy and theosophical religious writings, between 1624 and 1661 Gifftheil stalked Europe's battlefields, petitioning kings, princes, and emperors to end the warfare endemic on the continent. Convinced that all conflict was prompted by 'false prophets'-by which Gifftheil meant the clergy of Europe's Christian confessions-he pleaded with rulers to abjure the counsel of their advisors and institute instead a godly peace. When this approach proved fruitless, Gifftheil reinvented himself by taking up his sword as 'God's warrior.' Thereby he embarked on a quest to recruit an army of the righteous to wage holy war, and establish peace with the blade of his sword. This work examines the growth and fallout of Gifftheil's mission and its reception among Europe's religious dissenters-including figures such as Abraham von Franckenberg and Quirinus Kuhlmann-as well as the results of his strivings in European political circles. Gifftheil's story reveals an alternative transnational history of religious and political dissent in the seventeenth century. It casts new light on the place of prophecy and madness in the negotiation of religious authority, the origins of the theosophical current, and the stranger apocalyptic impulses at the roots of Pietism and missionary Christianity"--

The Hybrid Reformation

The Hybrid Reformation PDF

Author: Christopher Ocker

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2022-09-22

Total Pages: 325

ISBN-13: 1108477976

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Studies the thought and actions of the Reformation's central figures - reformers, counter-reformers, and their supporters - in the light of ordinary people.

Incombustible Lutheran Books in Early Modern Germany

Incombustible Lutheran Books in Early Modern Germany PDF

Author: Avner Shamir

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-01-16

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 0429619596

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This book discusses the early modern engagement with books that survived intentional or accidental fire in Lutheran Germany. From the 1620s until the middle of the eighteenth century, unburnt books became an attraction for princes, publishers, clergymen, and some laymen. To cope with an event that seemed counter-intuitive and possibly supernatural, contemporaries preserved these books, narrated their survival, and discussed their significance. This book demonstrates how early modern Europeans, no longer bound to traditional medieval religion, yet not accustomed to modern scientific ways of thinking, engaged with a natural phenomenon that was not uncommon and yet seemed to defy common sense.

Apocalypse Now

Apocalypse Now PDF

Author: Damien Tricoire

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2022-08-03

Total Pages: 366

ISBN-13: 1000624994

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Eschatology played a central role in both politics and society throughout the early modern period. It inspired people to strive for social and political change, including sometimes by violent means, and prompted in return strong reactions against their religious activism. From the fifteenth to the eighteenth century, numerous apocalyptical and messianic movements came to the fore across Eurasia and North Africa, raising questions about possible interconnections. Why were eschatological movements so pervasive in early modern times? This volume provides some answers to this question by exploring the interconnected histories of confessions and religions from Moscow to Cusco. It offers a broad picture of Christian and, to a lesser extent, Jewish and Islamic eschatological movements from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century, thereby bridging important and long-standing gaps in the historiography. Apocalypse Now will appeal to both researchers and students of the history of early modern religion and politics in the Christian, Jewish and Islamic worlds. By exploring connections between numerous eschatological movements, it gives a fresh insight into one of the most promising fields of European and global history.

Jacob Böhme and His World

Jacob Böhme and His World PDF

Author: Bo Andersson

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2018-11-12

Total Pages: 400

ISBN-13: 9004385096

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This volume deepens our understanding of Jacob Böhme’s texts and contexts and facilitates future research. It encompasses sections on the text-centered approach to Böhme, facets of his environment, and aspects of his influence which bring latent features of his writings to light.

A Widower's Lament

A Widower's Lament PDF

Author: Ronald K. Rittgers

Publisher: Fortress Press

Published: 2021-09-21

Total Pages: 343

ISBN-13: 1506424813

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Lament is essential to human thriving. It allows us to cope with significant loss, an inescapable feature of our mortal existence. Lament is the passionate outpouring of deep sorrow and grief over such loss, which helps us avoid being completely overcome by the strong emotions that come with it. Lament is cathartic and constructive. It is a necessary step in coming to terms with great loss and moving forward in life. Not to lament is not to live--or at least not to live very fully, deeply, or well. This book deals with one instance of Christian lament in the late Reformation by exploring the efforts of a talented yet little-known layman to cope with the death of his beloved wife. For the first time, it provides full access to the remarkable work of private devotion that he authored to express his lament. A work of haunting candor, impressive artistry, and searching faith, The Pious Meditations is an extraordinarily rare and valuable source that has received very little scholarly attention. It furnishes both fresh insight into life in the past and important resources for life in the present. Written in a period that knew no radical separation between the academy and the church, it was informed by the author's experience in both, and can continue to speak to both today.

The Devil's Art

The Devil's Art PDF

Author: Jason P. Coy

Publisher: University of Virginia Press

Published: 2020-06-04

Total Pages: 229

ISBN-13: 0813944082

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In early modern Germany, soothsayers known as wise women and men roamed the countryside. Fixtures of village life, they identified thieves and witches, read palms, and cast horoscopes. German villagers regularly consulted these fortune-tellers and practiced divination in their everyday lives. Jason Phillip Coy brings their enchanted world to life by examining theological discourse alongside archival records of prosecution for popular divination in Thuringia, a diverse region in central Germany divided into a patchwork of princely territories, imperial cities, small towns, and rural villages. Popular divination faced centuries of elite condemnation, as the Lutheran clergy attempted to suppress these practices in the wake of the Reformation and learned elites sought to eradicate them during the Enlightenment. As Coy finds, both of these reform efforts failed, and divination remained a prominent feature of rural life in Thuringia until well into the nineteenth century. The century after 1550 saw intense confessional conflict accompanied by widespread censure and disciplinary measures, with prominent Lutheran theologians and demonologists preaching that divination was a demonic threat to the Christian community and that soothsayers deserved the death penalty. Rulers, however, refused to treat divination as a capital crime, and the populace continued to embrace it alongside official Christianity in troubled times. The Devil’s Art highlights the limits of Reformation-era disciplinary efforts and demonstrates the extent to which reformers’ efforts to inculcate new cultural norms relied upon the support of secular authorities and the acquiescence of parishioners. Negotiation, accommodation, and local resistance blunted official reform efforts and ensured that occult activities persisted and even flourished in Germany into the modern era, surviving Reformation-era preaching and Enlightenment-era ridicule alike. Studies in Early Modern German History

The Cambridge History of Reformation Era Theology

The Cambridge History of Reformation Era Theology PDF

Author: Kenneth G Appold

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2023-09-30

Total Pages: 921

ISBN-13: 1009302973

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This volume studies Reformation-Era theology by comparing how various denominations formulated and treated topics, thus encouraging ecumenical dialogue. It will remain the definitive place for teachers and students of theology to begin any further study into the origins and formulation of their denomination's teachings during this period.