Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

85 results found

Pharisees

(Encyclopedia)Pharisees fârˈĭsēz [key], one of the two great Jewish religious and political parties of the second commonwealth. Their opponents were the Sadducees, and it appears that the Sadducees gave them th...

Tillich, Paul Johannes

(Encyclopedia)Tillich, Paul Johannes tĭlˈĭk [key], 1886–1965, American philosopher and theologian, b. Germany, educated at the universities of Berlin, Tübingen, Halle, and Breslau. In 1912 he was ordained a m...

New Testament

(Encyclopedia)New Testament, the distinctively Christian portion of the Bible, consisting of 27 books of varying lengths dating from the earliest Christian period. The seven epistles whose authorship by St. Paul is...

deconstruction

(Encyclopedia)deconstruction, in linguistics, philosophy, and literary theory, the exposure and undermining of the metaphysical assumptions involved in systematic attempts to ground knowledge, especially in academi...

Ahmadiyya

(Encyclopedia)Ahmadiyya äh mə dēˈ yə [key], a contemporary messianic movement founded (1899) by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1839–1908), b. Qadiyan, the Punjab. His Barahin-i Ahmadiyya, which he began to publish in 1...

Universalist Church of America

(Encyclopedia)Universalist Church of America, Protestant denomination originating in the 18th cent. and represented almost entirely in the United States. Universalism is the belief that it is God's purpose to save ...

Tchaikovsky, Peter Ilyich

(Encyclopedia)Tchaikovsky, Peter Ilyich ĭlyēchˈ chīkôfˈskē [key], 1840–93, Russian composer, b. Kamsko-Votkinsk. Variant transliterations of his name include Tschaikovsky and Chaikovsky. He is a towering f...

iconoclasm

(Encyclopedia)iconoclasm īkŏnˈōklăzəm [key] [Gr.,=image breaking], opposition to the religious use of images. Veneration of pictures and statues symbolizing sacred figures, Christian doctrine, and biblical ev...

Vatican Council, Second

(Encyclopedia)Vatican Council, Second, popularly called Vatican II, 1962–65, the 21st ecumenical council (see council, ecumenical) of the Roman Catholic Church, convened by Pope John XXIII and continued under Pau...

Dante Alighieri

(Encyclopedia)Dante Alighieri dănˈtē, Ital. dänˈtā älēgyĕˈrē [key], 1265–1321, Italian poet, b. Florence. Dante was the author of the Divine Comedy, one of the greatest of literary classics. Dante's ...

Browse by Subject