This volume contains an interdisciplinary discussion on the interpretation of the world by religions in the Ancient Near East, Greco-Roman antiquity, the Old and New Testament, and by late ancient Christianity and Islam. The basic categories for interpreting the world are chaos and cosmos, creation and eschatology, heaven and earth or the world of the living and the netherworld.

Religion has to do with God and the world. This volume contains an interdisciplinary discussion on the interpretation of the world by religions in the Ancient Near East, Greco-Roman antiquity, the Old and New Testament, and by late ancient Christianity and Islam. The basic categories for interpreting the world are chaos and cosmos, creation and eschatology, heaven and earth or the world of the living and the netherworld. The ten case studies in this book examine the topography of such world structures, and in doing so show the differences as well as the similarities between patterns of religious hermeneutics. The authors make it clear that whoever asked about the world and the powers that ruled it between the second millennium BC and the first millennium AD was also asking about the power of God - and thus about the purpose and meaning of the world.

Autorentext
Geboren 1970; 1990-96 Studium der Ev. Theologie an den Universitäten Marburg und Göttingen; 2001 Promotion zum Dr. theol. an der Philipps-Universität Marburg; 2003 Ordination zum Pfarrer der Evangelischen Kirche von Kurhessen-Waldeck; 2006 Habilitation an der Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena; seit 2007 Lehrstuhlinhaber für Kirchengeschichte an der Georg-August-Universität Göttingen; 2015-20 Sprecher des Sonderforschungsbereichs "Bildung und Religion"; 2021-23 Dekan der Theologischen Fakultät. Geboren 1970. Studium von Altorientalistik, Ägyptologie und Altes Testament in Münster und München. Assistentur und Oberassistentur in Leipzig. Seit 2008 Professorin für Altorientalistik in Göttingen. Seit 2010 Mitglied der Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen.