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Apocalyptic Literature THE OXFORD HANDBOOK OF . - APOCALYPTIC LITERATURE Edited by JOHN J. COLLINS OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS . -~-------:-·---------;~-,----· ---~ 84 ALEX P. JASSEN _ ( ). "The Use of Scripture in Enoch I ;' in Essays on the Book ofEnoch and Other 2009 1 I 7 ~ 9 Early Jewish Texts and Traditions. Leiden: Brill, PP· lll-23· . f CHAPTER 6 Na"mm, Hindy (2oi2). "How to Make Sense of Pseudonymo~s ~ttnbution: ~e ~ases o J d B h " ill. M Henze ed A Companion to Btbltcal Interpretatton tn Early 4 Ezra m 2 aruc , · , ., Judaism. Grmd Rapids: Eerdmans, PP· 308-36. , . Nickelsburg, George w. E. (I995). "Scripture in 1 Enoch :rn~ 1 Enoch_ as Sc~Ipture, ill T. b d D Hellholm eds. Texts and Contexts: Btbltcal Texts m Thetr Textual and APOCALYPTIC Forn erg m · ' ' 1 s d ·an University Situational Contexts: Essays in Honors of Lars Hartman. 0 s o: cm maVI Press, pp. 333-54· h h 6 s o8 LITERATURE AND _ ( ). Enoch : A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoc , C apters 1-3 , 1-1 • 2001 1 1 Minneapolis: Fortress. , 1l tu Nicol, George G. (I979). "Isaiah's Visions md the Visions of D=el. Vetus estamen m THE STUDY OF 29"50I-5 h Ston~, Michael E. (I990). Fourth Ezra: A Commentary on the Book of Fourt Ezra. EARLY JEWISH Minneapolis: Fortress. th "Iso;ah md the King of As/Syria in Dmiefs Fillal VlSlon: 0 n e Teeter, Andrew ( 20I2 ) . "-' , . al · "' · Rhetoric oflnner-ScripturalAllusion md the Hermeneutics of Mmtologrc Exegesis, ill MYSTICISM E. Mason et al., eds.,A Teacher for All Generations: Essays in Honor offames C. VanderKam, vol. 1. Leiden: Brill, pp. I69-99· . Tiller, Patrick A. (I993). A Commentary on the Animal Apocalypse ofI Enoch. Atlmta: Society of Biblical Literature. RA<ANAN BOUSTAN AND VanderK=, J=es c. (I984). Enoch and the Growth ofan Apocalyptic Tradition. Washillgton, PATRICK G. MCCULLOUGH D.C.: Catholic Biblical Association of America. _ (2000 ). "The Theophmy of Enoch I 3b-7, 9;' ~From_ Revelatton to Canon: Studtes tn the Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Literature. Le1den: Brill, pp. 332-53. "The Interpretation of Genesis in I Enoch;' in P. W. Flint, ed., The Btble at - (200I. ) 8 Qumran: Text, Shape, and Interpretation. Grmd Rapids: Eerdmms, PP· I29-4 · UNDER the influence ofGershom Scholem in the mid-twentieth century (Scholem 1954, 1965), work in the field of early Jewish mysticism has been informed by the hypothesis that there existed within ancient Judaism a continuous tradition of ecstatic mysticism. Scholem traced a direct historical trajectory from the Second Temple apocalypses to the early rabbinic teachings in the Mishnah, Tosefta, and Palestinian Talmud about the divine chariot-throne (merkavah) and, finally, to Hekhalot literature oflate antiquity. Yet, over the past three decades, this powerful paradigm has gradually come unraveled, due in no small part to contemporane­ ous developments in the study of the apocalyptic texts from the Hellenistic and early Roman periods. Rather than approaching these various textual corpora as evidence for a single, unbroken tradition ofJewish mysticism, many scholars now emphasize the significant linguistic, formal, and conceptual differences among them (e.g., Halperin 1980; Schafer 1984b, 2009; Himmelfarb 1988, 1993, 2006; Boustan 2007, 2011; Mizrahi 2009). This fundamental reassessment of the dynamics of continuity and innovation in the exegetical, speculative, and ritual traditions surrounding Ezekiel's vision of the merkavah has gone hand-in-hand with a decidedly historicist, discursive, and 86 RA'ANAN BOUSTAN AND PATRICK G. MCCULLOUGH APOCALYPTIC LITERATURE AND THE STUDY OF EARLY JEWISH MYSTICISM materialist "turn'' within the study of religion more generally. In the wake of criti­ and not legitimate analytical terms. In this section, we trace this reevaluation as cal inquiry into the popular and scholarly genealogy of the concept "mysticism" (de it relates to the concept of "mysticism'' in religious studies generally. Precise rela­ Certeau 1984; Katz 1978; Proudfoot 1985; Sharf 1998), specialists in the field of Jewish tionships proposed between apocalyptic literature and Hekhalot texts depend on mysticism have increasingly questioned the assumption thattheliteratures they study how one considers "early Jewish mysticism'' as a discursive category. "Mysticism'' are best interpreted as a Jewish variant of a universal "mystical" experience or state typically denotes ecstatic religious experience. As such, when academics apply of consciousness. Indeed, it has been suggested that, for Scholem and many others in the category to these two corpora, they often seek to identify how their common the field, the term mysticism represents an ideologically and even theologically laden motifs U:dicate shared experiential practices. Y~t consideration of the ideological category masquerading as a generally applicable analytical term (Huss 2007, 2012). assumptiOns embedded within the category of"mysticism" raises potent challenges· In this essay, we consider what is at stake in studying apocalyptic literature within to any simplistic account of the commonalities between apocalyptic literature and .the framework of "early Jewish mysticism:' We explore how this analytical fram.e­ Hekhalot texts . work continues to inform scholarship on apocalyptic literature and its relationship to The category of "mysticism;' as it has long been used within the discipline of reli­ subsequent forms ofJewish revelatory and ascent traditions from late antiquity, even gious studi~s, belongs to the history of modern European theology and philosophy. as some have begun to question its applicability and utility. We argue that comparison The term at 1ts most general refers to a private, interiorized, and unmediated encoun _ of early Jewish and Christian apocalyptic writings with rabbinic and Hekhalot mate­ ter with the divine, thereby valorizing individualized, anti-institutional, and indeed rials ought to be carried out under the sign of difference, rather than as an operation ~ticler~~al forms o~ piety. As recently as 1980, Margaret Smith could define mysti­ ainled at demonstratiilg the essential unity of the religious phenomena supposedly CISm as the most VItal element in all true religions, rising up in revolt against cold behind the texts (Smith 1990, 36-53; 2004, 230-322). formality and religious torpor" (1980, 20 ). This definition is, of course, only the latest The essay begins by analyzing the thoroughgoing impact that critical scholarship reflex of the two-century-old approach inaugurated by Friedrich Schleiermacher, on the modem genealogy of mysticism has exerted in recent years on the field of early who saw the essence of religion as "neither thinking nor acting, but intuition and feel­ Jewish mysticism. We then consider a number of alternative approaches taken in the ing" (1996, 22). It was this tradition of post-Enlightenment liberal theology that per­ field to the patterns ofsinlilarity and difference between early Jewish and Christian apoc­ manently severed the "mystical" from its ancient and medieval antecedents, which alyptic literature and Jewish ascent texts from late antiquity, especially Hekhalot litera­ had centered on communal rituals of initiation into the "mysteries" (Gr. mysteria, ture. Scholars have variously reconstructed the social location of the producers of these myeo), often with the promise of postmortem salvation. Influenced by the empha­ diverse corpora. The social imaginary of these bodies of texts differs in basic ways, and sis on subjective individual consciousness in Schleiermacher, William James at the we believe that this points to significant changes in the institutional contexts outofwhich dawn.of the ~entieth century helped to crystallize the scholarly study of mysticism the texts emerged. These shifts in the institutional settings of apocalyptic, rabbinic, and as philosophical and psychological inquiry into the private realm of "experience" Hekhalot literatures align with differences in the forms oftextual production and author­ (James 2012). ity, suggesting important developments in the core ainls and functions of these different These classic conceptions of "mysticism'' that inaugurated the field have under­ corpora. Thus, we end the essay by examining the analytical implications of examining gone radical reevaluation in the past three decades by both philosophers and histo­ textual production and literary representation in apocalyptic and Hekhalot texts. rians of religion. Most danmingly, a growing chorus of scholars has argued that the study of mystical experience itself constitutes an ideological exercise: not only does the language of mystical union (unio mystica) naturalize the forms of piety valorized in post-Reformation and post-Enlightenment Christianity, but its application to the so-called ~o_rld reli~ons is part and parcel of the history of European missionizing 1. APOCALYPTIC LITERATURE AND THE and colomalism (King 1999, 7). This deconstructive tendency reflects the discursive DISCOURSE OF ((MYSTICISM" IN RELIGIOUS approach of scholars such as Talal Asad, who has argued compellingly that "there can­ not be a universal definition of religion, not only because its constituent elements and STUDIES relationships are historically specific, but because that definition is itself the historical product of discursive processes" (1993, 29). Moreover, Wayne Proudfoot and others ~ave ~agn~,sed ~e imler co~tradiction of using the notion of religious or mystical In recent years, scholars of religion have become increasingly sensitive to the con­ expenence to stipulate an obJect of academic
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