Religious founder
As religious leaders called comparative religious studies and popular parlance traditional people who actively or passively the impetus for the formation of a new religion should have given. This term is traditionally related to the history of the impact, i.e. it is retained even when the historical existence of the person is questionable. The founders of so-called world religions are (in the assumed chronological order):
- Zarathustra for Zoroastrianism (2nd or 1st millennium BC)
- Siddhartha Gautama for Buddhism (6th century BC)
- Jesus Christ or Paul of Tarsus for Christianity (1st century AD)
- Mani for Manichaeism (216 to 277)
- Guru Nanak for Sikhism (15th century)
- Baha'u'llah for the Bahaitum (1817 to 1892)
The Hinduism known for many individual schools such. B. Vedanta or Vishnuitic , Shivaitic and Shakta schools of religious founders. Well-known religious founders of Hinduism are z. B. Shankara , Madhva and Chaitanya .
The designation as founder of a religion is controversial in many cases and does not necessarily coincide with the self-image of the so-called people, who in many cases only see themselves as reformers of an existing religion. Buddhists see Siddhartha Gautama as a rediscoverer of Buddhahood, not as its founder. Laozi did not represent a new religion, but a philosophy . Jesus of Nazareth saw himself as the Messiah sent to the Jews ; the foundations of Christianity, which after his death worshiped him as the savior of humanity, were only developed by Paul . And Mohammed is not presented in the Koran as the founder or founder of Islam, but as the most important and final prophet of a monotheism that has existed since the beginning of mankind .
Sometimes the lack of founders of religion (e.g. in the Theological Real Encyclopedia ) is cited as a distinguishing feature of the orally transmitted ethnic religions .
literature
- Peter Antes (ed.): Great founders of religion. Zarathustra, Mose, Jesus, Mani, Muhammad, Nanak, Buddha, Konfuzius, Lao Zi. Beck, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-8289-4887-1
- Gustav Mensching : life and legend of the founders of religion. Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, Zarathustra, Buddha, Confucius, Laotse. Holle, Darmstadt 1955
- Hans-Joachim Schoeps : The great founders of religion and their teachings. List, Munich 1967
- Walter Vogel : The founders of religion. Marix, Wiesbaden 2008, ISBN 978-3-86539-937-3
- Karl-Heinz Golzio: Who's who of the founders of religion. Kreuz, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-7831-2106-X
- Monika and Udo Tworuschka : The great founders of religion. Buddha, Jesus and Muhammad - a comparison. Metzler, Stuttgart 2018, ISBN 978-3-476-04776-2
Single receipts
- ↑ Hans Conzelmann: Geschichte des Urchristentums , 4th edition, Göttingen 1978, p. 1