본문 바로가기
  • Home

Characteristics of Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Religious Change from the Perspective of Lessing - With Focus on the Play Nathan der Weise -

SHIN JONG RAK 1

1성균관대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, an Enlightenment thinker, criticized the unfairness of Christianity and tried to reconcile Judaism and Islam in his play Nathan der Weise (Nathan the Wise). He supported opinion by using a ring allegory. Christianity, Judaism and Islam are the religions from the same root and the three religions are valuable and meaningful. Even more than 900 years after the Crusades, conflicts between religions still arise locally. Despite the fact that religion does not provide a problem, the ideology of religion still exists. Lessing found a major cause of conflict in the 18th century Enlightenment in the militancy of some Christians and wrote a play to ring an alarm bell against the rigid doctrines of his Christian society. In the 21st century, a small number of Muslims are in the process of committing acts of terrorism, and in many cases, Western society often regarded Muslims as reckless terrorists rather than searching the fundamental reason for terrorism. Western society is ignoring the reason for the terrorist attacks and they only criticize the terrorist incidents. But if we don’t know the exact reason for this, we will continue to face terrorism. Even now, hundreds of years later, we need an intellectual who thinks self-reflectively like Lessing.

Citation status

* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.