theophany
Americannoun
noun
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Etymology
Origin of theophany
1625–35; < Late Latin theophania < Late Greek theopháneia. See theo-, -phany
Explanation
When someone believes she has seen a true vision of God, it can be called a theophany. A theophany is an experience that many people hope for but few achieve: seeing an actual deity. Eastern and ancient Greek religions, as well as Christianity and Judaism, describe various types of theophanies. The Greek roots mean "god" and "appearance," and they show up in hundreds of other English words — theology, theocracy, and monotheism all come from theos, or god, and diaphanous, sycophant, and phantom come from phainein, "to show or to appear."
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Robben, perhaps somewhat immodest, seemed to agree that the stadium had just witnessed a kind of theophany: "Everybody was tired in extra-time but I found my second life," he said.
From The Guardian ● Mar. 28, 2010
The witchery of the prophetic documents has disappeared; poetry has given place to legislation, theophany to ritual, religion to theology.
From Introduction to the Old Testament by McFadyen, John Edgar
But there is a higher incarnation, a sublimer theophany.
From Morality as a Religion An exposition of some first principles by Sullivan, W. R. Washington
A theophany or appearance of a god seems to have been in the essence of the original conception of Greek Drama; a study of the fragments of Aeschylus will illustrate this.
From The Iphigenia in Tauris of Euripides by Murray, Gilbert
The manifesting would not be any theophany, as in the ancient Shekinah, but the spiritual in-dwelling of God.
From Personal Friendships of Jesus by Miller, J. R. (James Russell)
But generally the influence of the divine or divinised being is more directly exercised, as in oracles, dreams, invisible touches, or actual theophanies, or appearances of the gods to the adoring patient.
From Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death by Myers, F. W. H. (Frederic William Henry)
And by fair implication, He would have us to identify the persons in these two great theophanies.
From Expositions of Holy Scripture Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, and First Book of Samuel, Second Samuel, First Kings, and Second Kings chapters I to VII by Maclaren, Alexander
Then the sermonizer proceeds to relate some famous Bible story, resolving its naïve Semitic theophanies, its pictorial narration, its primitive morality, into the terms of contemporary ethical or political or economic principles.
From Preaching and Paganism by Fitch, Albert Parker
Miracles, angels, theophanies, dreams, are never absent from the palette.
From Prolegomena by Wellhausen, Julius
But when it is argued that wondrous theophanies are common to all faiths, two replies present themselves.
From The Expositor's Bible: The Book of Exodus by Chadwick, G. A.
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
