Library of Neology (BdN)

Commented critical editions in ten volumes

The project “library of neology” is a DFG funded longterm project at the seminar for Church History II. The digital implementation of its hybrid-edition is supported by department of “research and development” of the “Niedersächsische Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Göttingen”. Publisher house Mohr Siebeck accompanies the print edition.

While the Enlightenment is already a valuable research field in philosophy, literature and historical perspective, it is not yet fully recognized from church and protestant historical perspectives. This situation contradicts the understanding that Protestantism has undergone a fundamental transformation process which marks the transition from old to new Protestantism and characterizes church and theology till today. As the Enlightenment is a fully European and differentiated phenomenon, it is necessary to limit this project to a choice of texts and authors, which are however representative for theological Enlightenment. Against this background, neology becomes particularly important as a ripened form of German Enlightenment theory (A. Beutel). Despite its theological impression, it is only limited to the second half of the 18th century as well as some defining theologists and centers. While with the critical edition of Spalding (SpKA) the whole text collection of a leading neologist was edited, in the library of Neology (BdN) you can find different authors with differently focused works in critical hybrid editions. This presents a very differentiated picture of neology and stimulates interdisciplinary oriented research in the area of Enlightenment theory. List of titles that are edited is only available in German.

Publishing of BdN model edition

The model edition of the library of Neology (BdN) is accessible since the end of June 2016. It included paragraphs 140-150 of the first part of Johann August Nösselt’s “Instructions about education of new theologists” (1786/89-1818/1819) (BdN VI). These paragraphs are used to present the scientific work and technological realization that is planned for the next editions of the BdN.