The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (349 page)

Barmen Declaration
.

Document issued in May 1934 by the Confessing Synod of Barmen. It was drafted by K.
Barth
, and consists of a preamble and six theses. Each thesis quotes, then expounds, a New Testament text, then rejects an opposing thesis. ‘Barmen’ marked the beginning of organized opposition by the
Confessing Church
to the Nazi government.

 
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(Heb., ‘Son of the Commandment’). The ceremony and status of boys (aged 13) attaining religious adulthood in Judaism. Girls are considered to have reached religious maturity at the age of 12, but except in
Progressive Judaism
, this tends to be a fairly muted occasion. See
BAT MITZVAH
.

 
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Barnabas, St
.

A Jew of Cyprus who became a member of the earliest Christian church at Jerusalem and was the companion of
Paul
on his first missionary journey (Acts 4. 36, 9. 27, 13. 2, etc.). Feast day, 11 June.
The
Letter of Barnabas
is an anonymous treatise seeking to attack Judaism by claiming the
Old Testament
for Christians alone.

 
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(1886–1968).
Christian theologian, of dominating importance in 20th cent. Beginning his career at the end of the long 19th-cent. ascendancy of liberal and reductionist theology in Germany (e.g.
Feuerbach
,
Schleiermacher
, and
Strauss
), epitomized for Barth in the figure of
Harnack
, Barth entered his first and massive protest against this in his
Der Römerbrief
(1919). This introduced what came to be known as ‘dialectical theology’, or ‘the theology of crisis’
(Gk.,
krisis
, ‘judgement’). God cannot be found by humans as the conclusion of an argument, or as the experience at the end of a religious or mystical quest. God, rather, speaks his Word through the words of ‘the strange new world of the Bible’. Although he published many works, his major commitment was to the many-volumed
Church Dogmatics
. The first volume appeared in 1932; 13 volumes later, it was unfinished at his death. He increasingly stressed the human vocation to co-operate with the initiatives of God in creation, and saw a place for human wisdom and knowledge as a prolegomenon to the acknowledgement of the sovereignty of God.

 
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Bartholomew, St
.

One of the twelve
apostles
(Mark 3. 18). Feast day in W., 24 Aug.; in E., 11 June.

 
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Baruch
.

Scribe and companion of the
prophet
Jeremiah
. In
apocryphal
literature, several books are attributed to him, and further fragments of such books have been found among the
Dead Sea Scrolls
.
The Book of Baruch
(
1 Baruch
) is one of the additions to the book of Jeremiah in the
Septuagint
.
2 Baruch
(Syriac
Apocalypse of Baruch
) describes the Babylonian capture of Jerusalem, written to encourage Jews after the destruction of the second
Temple
.
3 Baruch
(Greek
Apocalypse of Baruch
) describes Baruch's vision of the seven heavens.
The
Rest of the Words of Baruch
(
4 Baruch
or
Paralipomena Jeremiae
) is a legendary account of Jeremiah's return from exile and his death.

 
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