Revelation
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This article deals with the theological term. For other meanings, see Revelation (disambiguation).
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A revelation is the opening up of something previously hidden. The term is used in the sensual, religious and legal sense.
Meanings
In modern German, the meanings fan out, as in the sense of "to entrust oneself to someone".
- The main use of the word "revelation" is in the religious sphere. Here it denotes the revelation of divine truths or a divine will. This is possible in principle in verbal or in non-verbal form, before individuals or many. While the entire nation of Israel witnessed a mass revelation of God at Mount Sinai, Pauline theology, for example, is the result of a claimed individual revelation, as are those of Buddha, Joseph Smith (prophet of Mormonism), Mohammed (prophet of Islam), Bahāʾullāh (founder of Bahaism), and all other founders of religion.
- The last book of the New Testament of the Bible, the Revelation of John, is also called "Revelation" for short and abbreviated accordingly. (e.g. Rev 1:1 Lut)
- The term is often also used in the sense of a more or less profound sensual experience of the divine in music, art or culinary food. This is not necessarily always meant as hyperbole. According to the theology of Paul Tillich, nothing is in principle excluded from revelation
Christianity
The term has - especially in Christianity - gone through a complex development, the individual stages of which are still reflected in its use today. It developed from a purely profane use of the word (in the Tanakh) only hesitantly to the idea that God reveals something to people - Himself or in the New Testament through the incarnation of God the exalted Christ.
From there, in the course of several hundred years, the term became a theological terminus technicus, around which a sharp controversy was conducted, especially during the Enlightenment. Here it was pointed out, among other things, that it is based on a subjective judgment whether something is assessed as divine revelation.
Since the 20th century the word in the sense of a "self-communication of God" has become a theological key term, which has a "system-building function" (von Stosch) and which is also used for religion-phenomenological comparisons.
