Professional paper

Religious Freedom in the Bible

Ivica Čatić orcid.org/0000-0002-2293-0917 ; Catholic Faculty of Theology, J. J. Strossmayer University of Osijek, Đakovo, Croatia

Abstract

Starting from the understanding of religious freedom as understood by the European Convention on Human Rights, under the theme “Religious freedom in the Bible” the paper examines an individual's right to their own free choice, practicing and further transmission of religious beliefs, and possible restrictions on that right. The paper first brings the relationship between Israel's monotheism and universalism and its historical development. It then makes a distinction between religious freedom of Israelites - who are bound by the Sinai Covenant to the Yahwistic monotheism - and other nations for whom the Old Testament recognizes the right to their own religious affiliation, always maintaining ethical demands.
The New Testament on the one hand manifests Jesus’ willingness to meet with all people and the absence of any demand for accepting either Judaism or Christianity - actually, there is no mention of the religious affiliation of foreign people that Jesus meets. However, with the descent of the Holy Spirit, the Church - sent to the whole world - will express a clear position that the affiliation with the Church is the condition of salvation (cf. Acts 4:12, 1 Tim 2:5). Paul strongly affirms the existence of the One God, whom he considers to be intelligible to all, including members of other religions, and on the other hand, he manifests an appreciation of the specific understanding of the relationship monotheism/polytheism that is characteristic of the Hellenistic period.

Keywords

Bible; Old Testament; New Testament; monotheism; religious freedom; tolerance

Hrčak ID:

116148

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/116148

Publication date:

12.2.2014.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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