From Apocalypticism to Merkabah Mysticism Supplements

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

From Apocalypticism to Merkabah Mysticism Supplements From Apocalypticism to Merkabah Mysticism Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism Editor John J. Collins The Divinity School, Yale University Associate Editor Florentino García Martínez Qumran Institute, University of Groningen Advisory Board j. duhaime – a. hilhorst – p.w. van der horst a. klostergaard petersen – m.a. knibb – h. najman j.t.a.g.m. van ruiten – j.sievers – g. stemberger e.j.c. tigchelaar – j. tromp VOLUME 114 From Apocalypticism to Merkabah Mysticism Studies in the Slavonic Pseudepigrapha by Andrei A. Orlov LEIDEN · BOSTON 2007 This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Orlov, Andrei A., 1960– From apocalypticism to Merkabah mysticism : studies in the Slavonic Pseudepigrapha/ by Andrei A. Orlov. From Apocalypticism to Merkabah Mysticism: Studies in the Slavonic Pseudepigrapha p. cm. – (Supplements to the Journal for the study of Judaism, ISSN 1384-2161 ; v. 114) Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and indexes ISBN-13: 978-90-04-15439-1 (alk. paper) ISBN-10: 90-04-15439-6 (alk. paper) 1. Apocryphal books–Translations into Slavic–History and criticism. 2. Apocryphal books–Translations into Slavic–Bibliography. I. Title. BS1700.O77 2006 229’.91–dc22 2006047336 ISSN 1384-2161 ISBN 90 04 15439 6 © Copyright 2007 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Brill provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910 Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands For my teachers TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface ................................................................ xi Location of the Original Publications ............................... xiii part one bibliography of the slavonic pseudepigrapha and related literature I. Slavonic Pseudepigrapha .......................................... 3 1. Collections of the Slavonic Pseudepigraphical Texts ........... 3 2. Collections of the Translations of the Slavonic Pseudepigraphical Texts ......................................... 4 3. Bibliographies of the Slavonic Pseudepigrapha ................ 5 4. Pseudepigrapha .................................................. 7 Fragment “Seventy Names of God”......................... 7 Fragment “About All Creation” ............................. 7 SlavonicLifeofAdamandEve ............................. 7 TheStoryofGod’sCreationofAdam...................... 9 Adam Octipartite ............................................ 11 Adamic Fragments in the Apocryphal Circle about the TreeoftheCross.......................................... 12 Adamic Fragments in the Discourse of the Three Hierarchs .................................................. 14 The Homily of Adam in Hades to Lazarus ................. 16 SatanielText(TentatioAdaeetEvaea Satanael) .......... 17 Adamic and Sataniel Fragments in the Legend about the Tiberian Sea .......................................... 17 The Apocryphon about the Struggle of the Archangel MichaelwithSataniel..................................... 18 2 Enoch....................................................... 19 Enochic Fragment about the Two Tablets .................. 35 Fragment “About the Flood” ................................ 35 Apocalypse of Abraham ..................................... 36 Testament of Abraham ...................................... 43 viii table of contents Apocryphal Fragments about Melchizedek ................. 45 The Ladder of Jacob ......................................... 46 JosephandAseneth.......................................... 48 Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs ........................ 48 TestamentofJob ............................................. 49 Life of Moses ................................................. 50 Apocryphal Fragments about David ........................ 52 Apocryphal Fragments about Solomon ..................... 54 Apocryphal Fragments about Elijah ........................ 56 Ascension of Isaiah........................................... 57 3 Baruch ...................................................... 59 4 Baruch ...................................................... 63 Pseudo-Danielic Fragments.................................. 64 ApocalypseofZosimus ...................................... 66 Ahiqar ........................................................ 66 The Word of the Blessed Zerubabel ........................ 68 The Josippon ................................................. 68 PalaeaHistorica.............................................. 71 ExplanatoryPalaea .......................................... 72 Palaea Chronographica ...................................... 74 II. Related Studies .................................................... 77 1. Jewish Pseudepigraphical Works and Traditions in Slavic Milieux ........................................................... 77 2. “Prohibited Books” .............................................. 93 3. Bogomilism and the Slavonic Pseudepigrapha ................. 96 part two studies in the slavonic pseudepigrapha Introduction........................................................... 103 the enoch tradition Overshadowed by Enoch’s Greatness: “Two Tablets” Traditions from the Book of Giants to Palaea Historica .......................... 109 Titles of Enoch-Metatron in 2(Slavonic) Enoch ....................... 133 “Without Measure and Without Analogy”: The Tradition of the Divine Body in 2 (Slavonic) Enoch .................................. 149 table of contents ix Secrets of Creation in 2 (Slavonic) Enoch.............................. 175 Celestial Choirmaster: The Liturgical Role of Enoch-Metatron in 2 Enoch and the Merkabah Tradition .......................... 197 The Origin of the Name “Metatron” and the Text of 2 (Slavonic) Enoch ................................................................ 223 Resurrection of Adam’s Body: The Redeeming Role of Enoch-Metatron in 2 (Slavonic) Enoch.............................. 231 the adam tradition On the Polemical Nature of 2 (Slavonic) Enoch: A Reply to C.Böttrich ......................................................... 239 “Many Lamps Are Lightened from the One”: Paradigms of the Transformational Vision in the Macarian Homilies ............. 269 The Flooded Arboretums: The Garden Traditions in the Slavonic Version of 3 Baruch and the Book of Giants ............... 289 the moses tradition Ex 33 on God’s Face: A Lesson from the Enochic Tradition ....... 311 Vested with Adam’s Glory: Moses as the Luminous Counterpart of Adam in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Macarian Homilies .. 327 The Heirs of the Enochic Lore: “Men of Faith” in 2 Enoch 35:2 and Sefer Hekhalot 48D:10 .......................................... 345 the noah tradition “Noah’s Younger Brother”: The Anti-Noachic Polemics in 2 (Slavonic) Enoch...................................................... 361 Noah’s Younger Brother Revisited: Anti-Noachic Polemics and the Date of 2 (Slavonic) Enoch ...................................... 379 the jacob tradition The Face as the Heavenly Counterpart of the Visionary in the Slavonic Ladder of Jacob............................................. 399 the melchizedek tradition Melchizedek Legend of 2 (Slavonic) Enoch ............................ 423 x table of contents Bibliography .......................................................... 441 IndexofSources...................................................... 465 Modern AuthorIndex................................................ 477 PREFACE This book contains several essays previously published in journals inac- cessible to many interested readers. I am thankful to the editors of these journals for permission to re-use the material. The format and the style of the original publications have been changed to comply with the standards of the collection. Some alter- ations also have been made due to printing errors or obvious errors of fact. Some footnotes have been omitted as they appeared in more than one article. Slavonic citations of 2 Enoch have been standardized where it is possible in accordance with Sokolov’s edition. All Russian bibliographical references are given according to the new orthogra- phy. While numerous bibliographical tools were consulted in prepara- tion of the bibliographical section on Slavonic pseudepigrapha, spe- cial recognition is due to Lorenzo DiTommaso’s A Bibliography of Pseude- pigrapha Research 1850–1999 (JSPSS, 39;Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001) and Dmitrij Lihachev’s Словарь книжников и книжности Древней Руси (Ленинград, 1987–89). I owe special thanks to my colleagues at the Department of Theol- ogy of Marquette University for their continued human and scholarly support and encouragement. I would like to express my appreciation to Pat Anderson, Bogdan Bucur, Silviu Bunta, Christopher Dorn, Rachel Elior, Basil Lourié, Oleg Makariev, Nikolai Seleznyov, and Lisa Stephenson who read the manuscript and offered numerous helpful suggestions. I also wish to thank Dragos Giulea for his assistance in compiling the indexes. I am grateful to Prof. John J. Collins
Recommended publications
  • Submits Addl Info Re SER Open Items.Forwards Draft Copy of Pending
    . * .' * ** 4 LONG ISLAND LIGHTING COM PANY #Ed"O w SHOREHAM NUCLEAR POWER STATION P.O. DOX Gia, NORTH COUNTRY ROAD e WADING RIVER, N.Y.11792 ? February 5, 1979 SNRC-357 Mr. Harold R. Denton, Director Office of Nuclear Reacter Regulation U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, D. C. 20555 Shoreham Nuclear Power Station - Unit 1 Docket No. 50-322 Dear Mr. Denton: During a meeting held in your office on Decemoer 14, 1978, the status of tM remaining SER open items were discussed with the NRC Staff. As a result of those discussions, it was agreed that we would provide additional information clarifying a number of the open items. Enclosed herewith are fifteen (15) sets of the additional information provided in response to those requests for SER open items numbered 6, 7, 11, 13, 19, and 20 plus confirmatory issues numbered 4 and 12. In addition, we are enclosing draft copies of a pending FSAR figure change to reflect an improvement in the intake canal slope stability, the bases of which are discussed in FSAR Section 2.5.5 and Appendix 2L. Subsequent submittals will be made on or about Feb uary 28, 1979 which will provide additional information relative to SER open items 2, 5, and 20 plus confirmatory issues 1, 8, 15, 16 and 17. Information for any remaining Applicant-action items will be forwarded to the NRC as it becomes available. - ry t uly yours, MS DOCUME;T CO?iTNilS .; POOR QUAUTY PAGES o - [D M . i . P. No arro, Project' Manager Shoreham Nuclear Power Station JPM/cl 90 Encls.
    [Show full text]
  • +1. Introduction 2. Cyrillic Letter Rumanian Yn
    MAIN.HTM 10/13/2006 06:42 PM +1. INTRODUCTION These are comments to "Additional Cyrillic Characters In Unicode: A Preliminary Proposal". I'm examining each section of that document, as well as adding some extra notes (marked "+" in titles). Below I use standard Russian Cyrillic characters; please be sure that you have appropriate fonts installed. If everything is OK, the following two lines must look similarly (encoding CP-1251): (sample Cyrillic letters) АабВЕеЗКкМНОопРрСсТуХхЧЬ (Latin letters and digits) Aa6BEe3KkMHOonPpCcTyXx4b 2. CYRILLIC LETTER RUMANIAN YN In the late Cyrillic semi-uncial Rumanian/Moldavian editions, the shape of YN was very similar to inverted PSI, see the following sample from the Ноул Тестамент (New Testament) of 1818, Neamt/Нямец, folio 542 v.: file:///Users/everson/Documents/Eudora%20Folder/Attachments%20Folder/Addons/MAIN.HTM Page 1 of 28 MAIN.HTM 10/13/2006 06:42 PM Here you can see YN and PSI in both upper- and lowercase forms. Note that the upper part of YN is not a sharp arrowhead, but something horizontally cut even with kind of serif (in the uppercase form). Thus, the shape of the letter in modern-style fonts (like Times or Arial) may look somewhat similar to Cyrillic "Л"/"л" with the central vertical stem looking like in lowercase "ф" drawn from the middle of upper horizontal line downwards, with regular serif at the bottom (horizontal, not slanted): Compare also with the proposed shape of PSI (Section 36). 3. CYRILLIC LETTER IOTIFIED A file:///Users/everson/Documents/Eudora%20Folder/Attachments%20Folder/Addons/MAIN.HTM Page 2 of 28 MAIN.HTM 10/13/2006 06:42 PM I support the idea that "IA" must be separated from "Я".
    [Show full text]
  • Menein As Key to a Mystical Reading of John 15
    MENEIN AS KEY TO A MYSTICAL READING OF JOHN 15 BY ADRIAAN JOHANNES JACOBUS STANDER THESIS SUBMITTED IN FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS IN RESPECT OF THE DOCTORAL DEGREE QUALIFICATION D.TH. IN THE DEPARTMENT OF NEW TESTAMENT IN THE FACULTY OF THEOLOGY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF THE FREE STATE PROMOTER: PROF. PIETER G.R. DE VILLIERS NOVEMBER 2016 TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................................................................... ii DANKBETUIGING .......................................................................................................................................... v ON HAVING SECOND THOUGHTS ........................................................................................................ - 1 - CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................. - 3 - CHAPTER 2 A CLOSE READING OF JOHN 15 ...................................................................................... - 5 - 1. Lexical meanings for ............................................................................................................. - 5 - 2. A close reading of John 15................................................................................................................. - 6 - 3. Formal analysis of John 15 .............................................................................................................. - 14 - 3.1 Section 1: The necessity of mutual indwelling
    [Show full text]
  • The Book of Revelation Bruce Metzger, Breaking the Code, 62
    The Book of Revelation Bruce Metzger, Breaking the Code, 62 “The sequence of the opening of the seven seals, broken by chapter 7, is now resumed: one more seal is to be opened, the last. And that, one would have thought, would be the end of the drama; after the earth had received such punishment, what more could still be in store? And so, with the seventh seal, the reader expects the final cataclysm. But nothing happens. Instead, ‘there was silence in heaven for about half an hour’ (8:1). It is like the solemn hush before the bursting of a hurricane. The effect of the pause is to heighten the horror of the next series of God’s judgments, each to be announced by the sounding of a trumpet.” The Seventh Seal (8:1-6) • Silence – trembling, fear, solitude, death because of divine judgment (Psa. 31:17; Isa. 47:5; Ezek. 27:32; Zeph. 1:7, 11; Hab. 2:20; Zech. 2:13) • This is in contrast to the great noise heard thus far and is very drawn out (a half-hour of silence?!) • Like a drumroll or delay before a jury shares a verdict • Seven Angels – Jews believed there were 7 archangels who were given authority over the nations (Psa. 78:49) – these were named Raphael, Uriel, Raguel, Michael, Sariel, Gabriel, and Remiel (Tobit 12:15; 1 Enoch 20; cf. Dan. 10:13; 1Thess. 4:16; Jude 9); could be cultural or merely symbolic like the other sevens throughout the book The Symbolism of Trumpets • A signal that holy war was about to begin; thus another symbol of judgment • A call to assemble for attention/war/attack (Num.
    [Show full text]
  • Seven Angels and Seven Trumpets
    Seven Angels and Seven Trumpets The opening of the seventh seal in chapter 8 of Revelation leads immediately to a new series of sevens—seven angels with seven trumpets. With this new series of seven come violent signs upon the earth beginning with hail and fire mixed with blood. Though the events unfolding are dire, God’s mercy is shown through only a third dying (9:18). Some are sparred, offering yet another chance to repent. The Seven Angels—whileAngels this is the only reference within the Bible to “the seven angels,” there is a reference to them in the Book of Tobit, which was written between the time of the Old and New Testaments. Tobit 12:15 says, “I am Raphael, one of the seven angels who stand ready and enter before the glory of the Lord.” Also, the Prophecy of Enoch, an influential Jewish prophecy not found in scripture even names the seven angels as Uriel, Raguel, Michael, Sariel, Gabriel, and Remiel. These non-scriptural references would have been familiar to many in the churches who first received the Revelation to John as a letter. PlaguesPlagues—all commentators on this series of angels blowing trumpets note the similarities between the Plagues of Egypt (Exodus 7-10, Psalm 78:44, 105:27-36 and Amos 4:6-11) and the disasters that come here in Revelation. The thrust of the similarities show that Rome and other governments like it fall into the same patterns as Egypt did under the Pharaoh who countered Moses. Like the Pharaoh, they face the wrath of God.
    [Show full text]
  • Gog and Magog and Ethnic Difference in the Catalan Atlas (1375) Thomas Franke
    University of New Mexico UNM Digital Repository History ETDs Electronic Theses and Dissertations 9-12-2014 Monsters at the End of Time: Gog and Magog and Ethnic Difference in the Catalan Atlas (1375) Thomas Franke Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/hist_etds Recommended Citation Franke, Thomas. "Monsters at the End of Time: Gog and Magog and Ethnic Difference in the Catalan Atlas (1375)." (2014). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/hist_etds/30 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Electronic Theses and Dissertations at UNM Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in History ETDs by an authorized administrator of UNM Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Thomas Samuel Franke Candidate History Department This thesis is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication: Approved by the Thesis Committee: Michael A. Ryan , Chairperson Timothy C. Graham Sarah Davis-Secord Franke i MONSTERS AT THE END OF TIME: GOG AND MAGOG AND ETHNIC DIFFERENCE IN THE CATALAN ATLAS (1375) by THOMAS FRANKE BACHELOR OF ARTS, UC IRVINE 2012 THESIS Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS HISTORY The University of New Mexico Albuquerque, New Mexico JULY 2014 Franke ii Abstract Franke, Thomas. Monsters at the End of Time: Gog and Magog and Ethnic Difference in the Catalan Atlas (1375). University of New Mexico, 2014. Although they are only mentioned briefly in Revelation, the destructive Gog and Magog formed an important component of apocalyptic thought for medieval European Christians, who associated Gog and Magog with a number of non-Christian peoples.
    [Show full text]
  • Solidarity and Mediation in the French Stream Of
    SOLIDARITY AND MEDIATION IN THE FRENCH STREAM OF MYSTICAL BODY OF CHRIST THEOLOGY Dissertation Submitted to The College of Arts and Sciences of the UNIVERSITY OF DAYTON In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for The Degree Doctor of Philosophy in Theology By Timothy R. Gabrielli Dayton, Ohio December 2014 SOLIDARITY AND MEDIATION IN THE FRENCH STREAM OF MYSTICAL BODY OF CHRIST THEOLOGY Name: Gabrielli, Timothy R. APPROVED BY: _________________________________________ William L. Portier, Ph.D. Faculty Advisor _________________________________________ Dennis M. Doyle, Ph.D. Faculty Reader _________________________________________ Anthony J. Godzieba, Ph.D. Outside Faculty Reader _________________________________________ Vincent J. Miller, Ph.D. Faculty Reader _________________________________________ Sandra A. Yocum, Ph.D. Faculty Reader _________________________________________ Daniel S. Thompson, Ph.D. Chairperson ii © Copyright by Timothy R. Gabrielli All rights reserved 2014 iii ABSTRACT SOLIDARITY MEDIATION IN THE FRENCH STREAM OF MYSTICAL BODY OF CHRIST THEOLOGY Name: Gabrielli, Timothy R. University of Dayton Advisor: William L. Portier, Ph.D. In its analysis of mystical body of Christ theology in the twentieth century, this dissertation identifies three major streams of mystical body theology operative in the early part of the century: the Roman, the German-Romantic, and the French-Social- Liturgical. Delineating these three streams of mystical body theology sheds light on the diversity of scholarly positions concerning the heritage of mystical body theology, on its mid twentieth-century recession, as well as on Pope Pius XII’s 1943 encyclical, Mystici Corporis Christi, which enshrined “mystical body of Christ” in Catholic magisterial teaching. Further, it links the work of Virgil Michel and Louis-Marie Chauvet, two scholars remote from each other on several fronts, in the long, winding French stream.
    [Show full text]
  • 1 Beginning the Conversation
    NOTES 1 Beginning the Conversation 1. Jacob Katz, Exclusiveness and Tolerance: Jewish-Gentile Relations in Medieval and Modern Times (New York: Schocken, 1969). 2. John Micklethwait, “In God’s Name: A Special Report on Religion and Public Life,” The Economist, London November 3–9, 2007. 3. Mark Lila, “Earthly Powers,” NYT, April 2, 2006. 4. When we mention the clash of civilizations, we think of either the Spengler battle, or a more benign interplay between cultures in individual lives. For the Spengler battle, see Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996). For a more benign interplay in individual lives, see Thomas L. Friedman, The Lexus and the Olive Tree (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1999). 5. Micklethwait, “In God’s Name.” 6. Robert Wuthnow, America and the Challenges of Religious Diversity (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005). “Interview with Robert Wuthnow” Religion and Ethics Newsweekly April 26, 2002. Episode no. 534 http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week534/ rwuthnow.html 7. Wuthnow, America and the Challenges of Religious Diversity, 291. 8. Eric Sharpe, “Dialogue,” in Mircea Eliade and Charles J. Adams, The Encyclopedia of Religion, first edition, volume 4 (New York: Macmillan, 1987), 345–8. 9. Archbishop Michael L. Fitzgerald and John Borelli, Interfaith Dialogue: A Catholic View (London: SPCK, 2006). 10. Lily Edelman, Face to Face: A Primer in Dialogue (Washington, DC: B’nai B’rith, Adult Jewish Education, 1967). 11. Ben Zion Bokser, Judaism and the Christian Predicament (New York: Knopf, 1967), 5, 11. 12. Ibid., 375.
    [Show full text]
  • Abraham Abulafia
    PROPHETIC/ECSTATIC KABBALAH; ABRAHAM ABULAFIA (Deut. 16:16: Three times a year--on the Feast of Unleavened Bread, on the Feast of Weeks, and on the Feast of Booths—-all your males shall appear (yei- ra’eh) before the Lord your God in the place that He will choose.) Yochanan ben Dahavai said in the name of Rabbi Yehudah: A man who is blind in one eye is exempt from appearing (at the Temple on the Pilgrimage festivals, as it is said: yir’eh (He will see), yei-ra’eh (He will be seen). [Both words are represented with the same letters. Thus the text lends itself to the following interpretation:] As He comes to see, so He comes to be seen; just as (He comes) to see with both eyes, so also (He is) to be seen with both eyes. ---Talmud, Chagigah 2a A great secret [concerning a teaching in Midrash Bereshit Rabbah 27:1]: “Great is the power of the prophets, who make the form resemble its Former.” We have already explained what seems to be the meaning of this secret, but I then found a passage from one of the earlier authors on this subject, and my heart urges me to record it, for it offers an explanation of the foregoing. The following is the text of that account. The deeply learned Rabbi Nathan, of blessed memory, said to me: “The complete secret of prophecy to a prophet consists in that suddenly he sees the form of his self standing before him, and he forgets his own self and ignores it...and that form speaks with him and tells him the future.
    [Show full text]
  • Bible Characters Mentioned Outside the Bible (See History.)
    Last updated: 12-Dec-2018 at 18:15 Bible chronology main page Bible Characters Mentioned Outside the Bible (See History.) © Richard P. Español in Contemporary Sources Aschmann Rick Aschmann Contents 1. Lists of Identified Individuals 2. Why are none found earlier than the kings? 2.1. The Pharaohs 2.1.1. Couldn’t we identify unnamed pharaohs based on the Egyptian king lists? 2.1.2. Can we identify the later named pharaohs? 2.2. The Four Kings of the East 2.3. Other Theories 1. Lists of Identified Individuals Many individuals mentioned in the Bible are also mentioned outside the Bible in contemporary (or fairly contemporary) archaeological sources. The following two links give a fairly complete list of these. List of biblical figures identified in extra-biblical sources 50 people in the bible confirmed archaeologically The interesting thing is that both of these sites evidently have the perspective that the Bible is not the inerrant, inspired Word of God, whereas I believe it is.1 So it might seem like such lists are not useful for the Bible-believer. On the contrary, they are quite useful: these are names that everyone can agree have been confirmed from extra-biblical sources, so they serve to confirm the reliability of the Bible in spite of having been compiled by unbelievers! If you look at the chart near the top of the first site, you can sort it from earliest to latest by clicking twice in the title of the Date (BCE) column. This chart shows that the earliest attested name (according to the compiler of this list) is Omri the father of Ahab, whose reign (and dynasty) started in 880 B.C.
    [Show full text]
  • Interpreting Diagrams from the Sefer Yetsirah and Its Commentaries 1
    NOTES 1 Word and Image in Medieval Kabbalah: Interpreting Diagrams from the Sefer Yetsirah and Its Commentaries 1. The most notorious example of these practices is the popularizing work of Aryeh Kaplan. His critical editions of the SY and the Sefer ha Bahir are some of the most widely read in the field because they provide the texts in Hebrew and English with comprehensive and useful appendices. However, these works are deeply problematic because they dehistoricize the tradi- tion by adding later diagrams to earlier works. For example, in his edition of the SY he appends eighteenth-century diagrams to later versions of this tenth-century text. Popularizers of kabbalah such as Michael Berg of the Kabbalah Centre treat the Zohar as a second-century rabbinic tract without acknowledging textual evidence to the contrary. See his introduction to the Centre’s translation of the Zohar: P. S. Berg. The Essential Zohar. New York: Random House, 2002. 2. For a variety of reasons, kabbalistic works were transmitted in manuscript form long after other works, such as the Hebrew Bible, the Talmud, and their commentaries were widely available in print. This is true in large part because kabbalistic treatises were “private” works, transmitted from teacher to student. Kabbalistic manuscripts were also traditionally transmitted in manuscript form because of their provenance. The Maghreb and other parts of North Africa were important centers of later mystical activity, and print technology came quite late to these regions, with manuscript culture persisting well into the nineteenth, and even into the mid- twentieth century in some regions.
    [Show full text]
  • Nicholas M. Railton Gog and Magog: the History of a Symbol
    EQ 75:1 (2003),23-43 Nicholas M. Railton Gog and Magog: the History of a Symbol Dr Nicholas Railton is lecturer in German at the University of Ulster. He has published books on the history of the Evangelical Alliance (The German Evangelical Alliance and the Third Reich, 1998; No North Sea. The Anglo-German Evangelical Network in the Middle of the Nineteenth Century, 2000) and articles on Christian responses to the Third Reich. Key words: Bible; Gog; Magog; symbolism. World politics, like the history of Gog and Magog, are very confused and much disputed. (Winston Churchill, 9 November 1951). Introduction Gog from the land of Magog, one of the great enemies of the people of God to appear at the end of the historical process, has vexed and bewildered exegetes for centuries. The prophet Ezekiel seems to speak of an unrepentant nation and its head and communicates God's impending judgement (Ezekiel 38:1-3, New American Stan- dard Bible) : .. And the word of the Lord came to me saying, 'Son of man, set your face toward Gog of the land of Magog, the prince of Rosh, Meshech and Tubal and prophesy against him and say, "Thus says the Lord God, 'Behold, I am against you, 0 Gog, prince of Rosh, Meshech and Tubal.'"' An examination of the historical development of this eschatologi­ cal idea, this Feindbild, will introduce us to the never-ending attempts to decipher these millennial foes inhabiting the areas to the far north of Palestine. This brief survey shows how the desire to interpret the signs of the times and understand the period in which one is living can, and usually has entrenched religious believers in an inflexible, nationalistic and self-righteous mind-set.
    [Show full text]