Book Reviews

Dead Sea Discoveries 20 (2013) 307–346 brill.com/dsd

Book Reviews

With Letters of Light: Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls, Early Jewish Apocalypticism, Magic, and Mysticism in Honor of Rachel Elior. Edited by Daphna V. Arbel and Andrei A. Orlov. Ekstasis: Religious Experience from Antiquity to the Middle Ages 2. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2011. Hardcover. Pp. vii + 456. € 129.95/US$ 195.00. ISBN 9783110222012 (e-ISBN 9783110222029).

This substantial volume brings together some twenty essays by an array of interna- tional scholars, all in tribute to a well-known (and somewhat controversial) scholar of Jewish mysticism: Rachel Elior, the John and Golda Cohen Professor of Jewish Philosophy and Jewish Mystical Thought at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem. The book opens with the editors’ joint contribution, “Rachel Elior—An Appre- ciation from her Colleagues and Students.” This is followed by one further retro- spective piece: “The Consideration of Religious Experience in the Work of Rachel Elior” by Frances Flannery. The rest of With Letters of Light is divided into three parts. Part I is entitled “Exegesis” and includes the following essays: “Peter and the Patriarch: A Conflu- ence of Traditions?” by Kelley Coblentz Bautch; “In Heaven or on Earth: A Mis- placed Temple Question about Ezekiel’s Vision” by Silviu N. Bunta; “Scriptural Exegesis in the Treatise of the Vessels, a Legendary Account of the Hiding of the Temple Treasures” by James R. Davila; “Cultivating Visions through Exegetical Meditations” by Dan Merkur; “ ‘Serpentine’ Eve in Syriac Christian Literature of Late Antiquity” by Sergey Minov; “From ‘Pre-Emptive Exegesis’ to ‘Pre-Emptive Speculation’? Maʿaseh Bereshit in Genesis Rabbah and Pirqei deRabbi Eliezer” by Annette Yoshiko Reed; and “Earthly and Heavenly Jerusalem in Philo and Paul: A Tale of Two Cities” by Mark Verman. Part II is entitled “Ritual” and includes “TheBook of Watchers and the Cycle of New Year Festivals” by Crispin Fletcher-Louis; “A Different Spirituality or ‘Other’ Agents?: On the Study of Magic in Rabbinic Literature” by Yuval Harari; “ ‘They Revealed Secrets to Their Wives’: The Transmission of Magical Knowledge in 1 Enoch” by Rebecca Lesses; “The Impurity of Oil and Spit among the Qumran Sectarians” by Jodi Magness; “ ‘The Likeness of Heaven’: The Kavod of Azazel in the Apocalypse of Abraham” by Andrei Orlov; and “Mystical Motifs in a Greek Synagogal Prayer?” by Pieter W. van der Horst.

Part III is entitled “Transformation” and includes “ ‘A Chariot of Light Borne by Four Bright Eagles’: Eve’s Vision of the Chariot in the Greek Life of Adam and Eve” by Daphna Arbel; “Messianic Movements in the Period of the Crusades” by Joseph Dan; “Jesus Revealed: The Dynamics of Early Christian Mysticism” by April D. DeConick; “Asenath: Ascetical Practice, Vision, and Transformation” by Celia Deutsch; “ ‘You are Gods’: Multiple Divine Beings in Late Antique Jewish Theology” by Naomi Janowitz; and “Transcribing Experience” by the late .A cumulative bibliography and index are also included .(ז''ל) Alan F. Segal The introductory essays establish that Elior’s work—with its wide breadth and creative iconoclasm—has had a profound influence on the study of Jewish mysticism. What is more, readers learn that Elior’s teaching and generosity have directly impacted many scholars of ancient Judaism in particular. But surprisingly, few of the essays that follow engage the dedicatee’s work in a sustained way. While most essays begin or end with brief, general comments concerning Elior’s work, some (e.g., Lesses, Dan, DeConick) do not include a single citation. Of those that do engage Elior’s work in substantial ways, some disagree considerably: Bunta argues that the temple’s divine throne in Ezekiel is located on earth, not in heaven (28–31); Reed cautions against asserting textual continuities between antiquity and the Middle Ages (131–32); Verman denies that the heavenly temple figured in any considerable way at Qumran (esp. 137–41); van der Horst separates the Jewish prayers in the Apostolic Constitutions from mystical traditions, raising in turn questions about whether prayers quoting Isa 6:3 are necessarily mystical at all (esp. 263–64). Without reference to Elior, Lesses associates the Book of Watchers with wisdom-scribal circles, not priestly ones (196–97). And with reference to Elior, Magness continues to associate the Qumran sectarians with the Essenes (223). To be sure, there are agreements and praises too: Fletcher-Louis commends Elior’s understanding of the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice (159–60 n. 2); Orlov productively engages Elior’s interpretations of the cherubim (249–51). But in the end, the volume as a whole does very little even to engage, let alone support, Elior’s broader arguments concerning widespread, early, and repeating patterns of secessionist priestly mysticism. But perhaps that’s not the point. What we have here is an impressively wide- ranging collection of important essays by an imposing list of contributors. There is indeed much to savor in this volume, and a great deal to contemplate. All readers of this journal will surely find something of interest (at the moment, Janowitz’s contribution on gender and monotheism is giving this reviewer much to think about). And it is for this reason that the volume constitutes a fitting tribute to Elior’s own provocative, wide-ranging and boundary-breaking work. Moreover, that a scholar whose primary focus has been on medieval and modern Kabbalah can receive such honor from an array of scholars of ancient Judaism bodes well for our field: beyond the homage to Rachel Elior, this volume also constitutes an open invitation to scholars from other fields to follow her footsteps in entering the