This volume is a study of two of the most important Slavonic apocalypses, the Apocalypse of Abraham and 2 Enoch, as crucial conceptual links between the symbolic universes of Second Temple apocalypticism and early Jewish mysticism. The study seeks to understand the mediating role of these Slavonic pseudepigraphical texts in the development of Jewish angelological and theophanic traditions from Second Temple apocalypticism to later Jewish Merkabah mysticism attested in the Hekhalot and Shiʿur Qomah materials. The study shows that mediatorial traditions of the principal angels and the exalted patriarchs and prophets played an important role in facilitating the transition from apocalypticism to early Jewish mysticism.

This volume is a study of two of the most important Slavonic apocalypses, the Apocalypse of Abraham and 2 Enoch, as crucial conceptual links between the symbolic universes of Second Temple apocalypticism and early Jewish mysticism. The study seeks to understand the mediating role of these Slavonic pseudepigraphical texts in the development of Jewish angelological and theophanic traditions from Second Temple apocalypticism to later Jewish Merkabah mysticism attested in the Hekhalot and Shi ur Qomah materials. The study shows that mediatorial traditions of the principal angels and the exalted patriarchs and prophets played an important role in facilitating the transition from apocalypticism to early Jewish mysticism.

This work gathers the author's contributions to four central areas of the study of Ancient Jewish literature, "Enoch and the Testaments," "4 Ezra," "The Study of Ancient Judaism (particularly of apocalypticism)," and the development of apocryphal traditions in Armenian. It presents authoritative studies by a leading scholar in the field.

Apocryphal traditions, often shared by Jews and Christians, have played a significant role in the history of both religions. The 26 essays in this volume show how such traditions were elaborated in literatures, liturgies, figurative arts and mythology, in regions ranging from Ethiopia to Italy.

A history of research that changed scholarly perceptions of early Judaism This collection of essays by some of the most important scholars in the fields of early Judaism and Christianity celebrates fifty years of the study of the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha at the Society of Biblical Literature and the pioneering scholars who introduced the Pseudepigrapha to the Society. Since its early days as a breakfast meeting in 1969, the Pseudepigrapha Section has provided a forum for a rigorous discussion of these understudied texts and their relevance for Judaism and Christianity. Contributors recount the history of the section's beginnings, critically examine the vivid debates that shaped the discipline, and challenge future generations to expand the field in new interdisciplinary directions. Features: Reflections from early members of the Pseudepigrapha Group Essays that examine a methodological shift from capturing and preserving traditions to exploring the intellectual and social world of Jewish antiquity Evaluations of past interactions with adjacent fields and the larger academic world

The Jewish culture of the Hellenistic and early Roman periods established a basis for all monotheistic religions, but its main sources have been preserved to a great degree through Christian transmission. This Guide is devoted to problems of preservation, reception, and transformation of Jewish texts and traditions of the Second Temple period in the many Christian milieus from the ancient world to the late medieval era. It approaches this corpus not as an artificial collection of reconstructed texts--a body of hypothetical originals--but rather from the perspective of the preserved materials, examined in their religious, social, and political contexts. It also considers the other, non-Christian, channels of the survival of early Jewish materials, including Rabbinic, Gnostic, Manichaean, and Islamic. This unique project brings together scholars from many different fields in order to map the trajectories of early Jewish texts and traditions among diverse later cultures. It also provides a comprehensive and comparative introduction to this new field of study while bridging the gap between scholars of early Judaism and of medieval Christianity.

The question of the reality of Cathars and other heresies is debated in this provocative collection.

Meghan Henning explores the rhetorical function of the early Christian concept of hell, drawing connections to Greek and Roman systems of education, and examining texts from the Hebrew Bible, Greek and Latin literature, the New Testament, early Christian apocalypses and patristic authors.

Time and eternity are concepts that have occupied an important place within Jewish mystical thought. This present volume gives pride of place to these concepts, and is one of the first works to bring together diverse voices on the subject. It offers a multivalent picture of the topic of time and eternity, not only by including contributions from an array of academics who are leaders in their fields, but by proposing six diverse approaches to time and eternity in Jewish mysticism: the theoretical approach to temporality, philosophical definitions, the idea of time and pre-existence, the idea of historical time, the idea of experiential time, and finally, the idea of eternity beyond time. This multivocal treatment of Jewish mysticism and time as based on variant academic approaches is novel, and it should lay the groundwork for further discussion and exploration.

This book presents a collection of papers from the fifth conference of the Enoch Seminar. The conference re-examined 2 Enoch, an early Jewish apocalyptic text previously known to scholars only in its Slavonic translation, in light of recently identified Coptic fragments.