Heilsgeschichte

See also: heilsgeschichte

English

Etymology

From German Heilsgeschichte.

Noun

Heilsgeschichte (uncountable)

1. (theology) History seen as the work of God's salvation. (Especially, in Christianity, the history of the Old Testament, seen as a preparation for the coming of Christ.)
   • 1959, Guthrie/Hall, translating Oscar Cullman, The Christology of the New Testament, p. 306:

     Without a divine Heilsgeschichte it would not make sense to speak of Jesus' ‘deity’. He would then simply be one of the heroes of history—nothing more.

   • 2007 December 4, Terry Eagleton, The Guardian:

     He was not a Leninist because he would have had no conception of historical self-determination. The only kind of history that mattered was Heilsgeschichte, or salvation history.

   • 2008, Jill Bradley, You Shall Surely Not Die, volume 1, page 71:

     The much greater iconographic programmes of the other three Bibles mean that a sort of pictorial Heilsgeschichte can be given spread throughout the work: in the Bamberg it has to be compressed.

2. (by extension) Any interpretation of history as leading to eventual well-being, as e.g. in Marxism.

Translations

history seen as the work of God's salvation

• Dutch: heilsgeschiedenis f, heilshistorie f
• German: Heilsgeschichte f
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: frelseshistorie m

  Nynorsk: frelseshistorie f

German

Etymology

Heil (“salvation”) +‎ Geschichte (“history”).

Noun

Heilsgeschichte f

1. Heilsgeschichte

Derived terms

• heilsgeschichtlich

Further reading

• “Heilsgeschichte” in Duden online
• “Heilsgeschichte” in Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache