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With Letters of Light: Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls, Early Jewish

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With Letters of Light: Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls, Early Jewish With Letters of Light rwa lç twytwab Ekstasis Religious Experience from Antiquity to the Middle Ages General Editor John R. Levison Editorial Board David Aune · Jan Bremmer · John Collins · Dyan Elliott Amy Hollywood · Sarah Iles Johnston · Gabor Klaniczay Paulo Nogueira · Christopher Rowland · Elliot R. Wolfson Volume 2 De Gruyter With Letters of Light rwa lç twytwab Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls, Early Jewish Apocalypticism, Magic, and Mysticism in Honor of Rachel Elior rwayla ljr Edited by Daphna V. Arbel and Andrei A. Orlov De Gruyter ISBN 978-3-11-022201-2 e-ISBN 978-3-11-022202-9 ISSN 1865-8792 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data With letters of light : studies in the Dead Sea scrolls, early Jewish apocalypti- cism, magic and mysticism / Andrei A. Orlov, Daphna V. Arbel. p. cm. - (Ekstasis, religious experience from antiquity to the Middle Ages;v.2) Includes bibliographical references and index. Summary: “This volume offers valuable insights into a wide range of scho- larly achievements in the study of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Jewish apocalypti- cism, magic, and mysticism from the Second Temple period to the later rabbinic and Hekhalot developments. The majority of articles included in the volume deal with Jewish and Christian apocalyptic and mystical texts constituting the core of experiential dimension of these religious traditions” - ECIP summary. ISBN 978-3-11-022201-2 (hardcover 23 x 15,5 : alk. paper) 1. Dead Sea scrolls. 2. Apocalyptic literature - History and criticism. 3. Jewish magic. 4. Mysticism - Judaism. 5. Messianism. 6. Bible. O.T. - Criticism, interpretation, etc. 7. Rabbinical literature - History and criticism. I. Orlov, Andrei A., 1960- II. Arbel, Daphna. BM487.W58 2010 2291.91-dc22 2010025722 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de. ” 2011 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/New York Painting on the cover: “firefox” by Elliot R. Wolfson, New York City, 2007, oil on canvas, 24 * 24. Printing and binding: Hubert & Co. GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ϱ Printed on acid-free paper Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com Contents Daphna Arbel and Andrei Orlov Rachel Elior – An Appreciation from her Colleagues and Students . 1 Frances Flannery The Consideration of Religious Experience in the Work of Rachel Elior . 6 I . Exegesis Kelley Coblentz Bautch Peter and the Patriarch: A Confluence of Traditions? . 13 Silviu N. Bunta In Heaven or on Earth: A Misplaced Temple Question about Ezekiel’s Visions . 28 James R. Davila Scriptural Exegesis in the Treatise of the Vessels, a Legendary Account of the Hiding of the Temple Treasures . 45 Dan Merkur Cultivating Visions through Exegetical Meditations . 62 Sergey Minov “Serpentine” Eve in Syriac Christian Literature of Late Antiquity . 92 Annette Yoshiko Reed From “Pre-Emptive Exegesis” to “Pre-Emptive Speculation”? Ma‘aseh Bereshit in Genesis Rabbah and Pirqei deRabbi Eliezer . 115 Mark Verman Earthly and Heavenly Jerusalem in Philo and Paul: A Tale of Two Cities . 133 vi Contents II . Ritual Crispin Fletcher-Louis The Book of Watchers and the Cycle of New Year Festivals . 159 Yuval Harari A Different Spirituality or ‘Other’ Agents?: On the Study of Magic in Rabbinic Literature . 169 Rebecca Lesses “They Revealed Secrets to Their Wives”: The Transmission of Magical Knowledge in 1 Enoch . 196 Jodi Magness The Impurity of Oil and Spit among the Qumran Sectarians . 223 Andrei Orlov “The Likeness of Heaven”: The Kavod of Azazel in the Apocalypse of Abraham . 232 Pieter W. van der Horst Mystical Motifs in a Greek Synagogal Prayer? . 254 III . Transformation Daphna Arbel “A Chariot of Light Borne by Four Bright Eagles”: Eve’s Vision of the Chariot in the Greek Life of Adam and Eve 267 Joseph Dan “Messianic Movements in the Period of the Crusades” . 285 April D. DeConick Jesus Revealed: The Dynamics of Early Christian Mysticism . 299 Celia Deutsch Aseneth: Ascetical Practice, Vision, and Transformation . 325 Naomi Janowitz “You Are Gods”: Multiple Divine Beings in Late Antique Jewish Theology . 349 Contents vii Alan F. Segal Transcribing Experience . 365 Bibliography . 383 Index . 449 Rachel Elior – An Appreciation from her Colleagues and Students Daphna Arbel and Andrei Orlov In one of her recent books, The Three Temples, Professor Rachel Elior quotes the words of Thomas Mann at the beginning of his novel Joseph and his Brothers: Very deep is the well of the past . Should we not call it bottomless? Bot- tomless indeed if – and perhaps only if – the past we mean is the past merely of the life of mankind, that riddling essence of which our own normally unsatisfied and quite abnormally wretched existences form a past; whose mystery, of course, includes our own and is the alpha and the omega of all our questions . Without a doubt, the work of Professor Rachel Elior reclaims surviv- ing works from the well of the past to explore the history of Jewish Mysticism, from its earliest manifestations up to the modern period . She constantly considers textual evidence, paying close attention to changing cultural contexts, attending to multiple voices and raising challenging questions related to the foundation and crystallization of Jewish mystical thought . This volume reflects the deep respect, grati- tude, and appreciation of colleagues and students who share some of her wide ranging scholarly interests and areas of research related to the Dead Sea Scrolls, apocalypticism, magic, and mysticism . Rachel Elior is the John and Golda Cohen Professor of Jewish Philosophy and Jewish Mystical Thought at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem . She was born and raised in Jerusalem, and earned her Ph . D . summa cum laude in 1976 from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where she has taught from 1978 until today . She has also served as a visiting professor and research scholar at many univer- sities and institutions in the United States and Europe, including Princeton University, Tokyo University, Yeshiva University, Case Western University, Shalom Institute in the University of New South Wales in Sydney, the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, Oberlin College, and University College London . She has also been a research fellow at the Oxford Center for Jewish Studies in Oxford University . 2 Daphna Arbel and Andrei Orlov For nearly thirty-five years Elior’s teaching and scholarship have inspired colleagues and students . She has investigated a wide range of texts, personalities, and periods, and has published numer- ous articles, edited books, and monographs which all investigate, sharply, insightfully, and in depth, critical questions related to both mystical phenomena and mystical traditions in diverse historical realities . It is difficult to capture in several sentences the breath, depth, and significance of Elior’s work . What is characteristic of her studies is her extensive knowledge of literature from antiquity to the modern period, her detailed textual investigation, her inno- vative perspectives, and her ability to shed new light on complex historical, conceptual, and textual issues, extending our vision to see, both in and through the texts, what might otherwise remain obscured . Demonstrating erudition and versatility, Rachel Elior’s work has contributed to the exploration of several areas of scholarship . One of them is the crystallization of early Jewish mysticism . In 1982 Elior published a critical edition of the Hekhalot Zutarti (“The Lesser Palac- es”) – one of the crucial textual evidences pertaining to the Hekhalot tradition . She has further probed the Hekhalot and Merkavah litera- ture in relation to the Dead Sea Scrolls and other sources, opened up these texts to fresh insights, and considered new possibilities related to both the origin and the nature of early Jewish mysticism . In particular, Elior has investigated traditions related to the Temple, priests, and priestly worship that were transformed from historical realities to heavenly visionary ideals . She has examined the textual evidence of these traditions in apocalyptic and early mystical liter- ature, including the book of Ezekiel, the books of Enoch, Jubilees, and the Dead Sea Scrolls, and has explored the historical context and social circumstances that may have contributed to their survival . In her recent studies, Elior has challenged and reassessed the pre- dominant opinion of scholars that the Essenes wrote the Dead Sea scrolls in Qumran . She has investigated the scrolls with a new set of questions, asserting instead that they demonstrate profound priestly interest and distinct priestly language, and were probably written “in clear Hebrew” by ousted Zadokite Temple priests in Jerusalem . The fruits of her investigation of the crystallization and nature of early Jewish mysticism have been published in important articles in Hebrew and English, as well as in several major books including Temple and Chariots, Priests and Angels, Sanctum and Shrines in Early Jewish Mysticism (2002, Hebrew), translated into English as The Three Temples, On the Emergence of Jewish Mysticism (2004); Hekhalot Litera- Rachel Elior – An Appreciation from her Colleagues and Students 3 ture and the Merkavah Tradition: The Theory of Early Mysticism and its Origins (2004, Hebrew); as well as Memory and Oblivion, The Secret of the Judaean Desert Scrolls (2009, Hebrew) . Rachel Elior’s historical, contextualized analysis, and the discerning insights she has pro- moted, not only paved challenging paths and grappled anew with uncertainties related to the formation of early Jewish mysticism, but also raised stimulating questions that have since established the basis for an ongoing active and rich, burgeoning scholarly dialogue that has flourished in recent years . Professor Rachel Elior has also devoted important studies to the exploration of some of the most complex and sophisticated variants of kabbalistic traditions that developed in the context of the Jewish Expulsion from Spain and later in Safed, in the writing of Joseph Karo (1488-1575) and Isaac Luria (1534-1572) .
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