Editing Righteousness (section)

{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2023}}
{{Short description|State of being morally correct and justifiable}}

'''Righteousness''' is the quality or state of "being morally right or justifiable"<ref name="OLD">{{cite web |title=rectitude vs. righteousness |url=https://www.askdifference.com/rectitude-vs-righteousness/ |url-status=dead |archive-url= |archive-date= |access-date= |website=}}</ref>  rooted in religious or divine law with a broader spectrum of moral correctness, justice, and virtuous living as dictated by a higher authority or set of spiritual beliefs.[https://www.askdifference.com/rectitude-vs-righteousness/] Rectitude, often a synonym for righteousness, is about personal moral values and the internal compass that guides an individual’s decisions and actions.<ref name="OLD" /> It can be found in [[Indian religions|Indian]], [[Religion in China|Chinese]], and [[Abrahamic religions|Abrahamic]] religions and traditions, among others, as a [[Theology|theological]] [[concept]]. For example, from various perspectives in [[Zoroastrianism]], [[Hinduism]], [[Buddhism]], [[Islam]], [[Christianity]], [[Religious Confucianism|Confucianism]], [[Taoism]], and [[Judaism]], it is an [[Property (philosophy)|attribute]] that implies that a person's actions are justified, and can have the connotation that the person has been "judged" as living a moral life, relative to the religion’s doctrines.

[[William Tyndale]] ([[Tyndale Bible|translator of the Bible]] into English in 1526) remodeled the word after an earlier word {{lang|ang|rihtwis}}, which would have yielded [[modern English]] *''rightwise'' or *''rightways''. He used it to translate the [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]] root {{lang|he|צדק}} {{transliteration|he|[[Tzadik|tzedek]]}}, which appears over five hundred times in the [[Hebrew Bible]], and the [[Greek language|Greek]] word {{lang|grc|δίκαιος}} ({{transliteration|grc|dikaios}}), which appears more than two hundred times in the [[New Testament]].

Etymologically, it comes from
Old English {{lang|ang|rihtwīs}}, from {{lang|ang|riht}} 'right' + {{lang|ang|wīs}} 'manner, state, condition' (as opposed to {{lang|ang|wrangwīs}}, "wrongful"<ref>{{cite journal|last=Wedgwood|first=Hensleigh|author-link=Hensleigh Wedgwood|title=On False Etymologies|journal=Transactions of the Philological Society
|year=1855|issue=6|publisher=George Bell|location=London|page=[https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b3924121;view=1up;seq=80 68]}}</ref>). The change in the ending of the word in the 16th century was due to association with words such as bounteous.{{r|OLD}}