Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of Abbreviations
- Fallen Angels and the History of Judaism and Christianity
- Introduction
- 1 Angelic Descent and Apocalyptic Epistemology: The Teachings of Enoch and the Fallen Angels in the Book of the Watchers
- 2 From Scribalism to Sectarianism: The Angelic Descent Myth and the Social Settings of Enochic Pseudepigraphy
- 3 Primeval History and the Problem of Evil: Genesis, the Book of the Watchers, and the Fallen Angels in Pre-Rabbinic Judaism
- 4 The Parting of the Ways? Enoch and the Fallen Angels in Rabbinic Judaism and Early Christianity
- 5 Demonology and the Construction of Christian Identity: Approaches to Illicit Angelic Instruction among Proto-Orthodox Christians
- 6 The Interpenetration of Jewish and Christian Traditions: The Exegesis of Genesis and the Marginalization of Enochic Literature
- 7 The Apocalyptic Roots of Merkabah Mysticism? The Reemergence of Enochic Traditions in Rabbinic Judaism
- Epilogue
- Bibliography
- Index of Modern Authors
- Index of Primary Sources
- Subject Index
7 - The Apocalyptic Roots of Merkabah Mysticism? The Reemergence of Enochic Traditions in Rabbinic Judaism
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 August 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of Abbreviations
- Fallen Angels and the History of Judaism and Christianity
- Introduction
- 1 Angelic Descent and Apocalyptic Epistemology: The Teachings of Enoch and the Fallen Angels in the Book of the Watchers
- 2 From Scribalism to Sectarianism: The Angelic Descent Myth and the Social Settings of Enochic Pseudepigraphy
- 3 Primeval History and the Problem of Evil: Genesis, the Book of the Watchers, and the Fallen Angels in Pre-Rabbinic Judaism
- 4 The Parting of the Ways? Enoch and the Fallen Angels in Rabbinic Judaism and Early Christianity
- 5 Demonology and the Construction of Christian Identity: Approaches to Illicit Angelic Instruction among Proto-Orthodox Christians
- 6 The Interpenetration of Jewish and Christian Traditions: The Exegesis of Genesis and the Marginalization of Enochic Literature
- 7 The Apocalyptic Roots of Merkabah Mysticism? The Reemergence of Enochic Traditions in Rabbinic Judaism
- Epilogue
- Bibliography
- Index of Modern Authors
- Index of Primary Sources
- Subject Index
Summary
WITH OUR FINAL CHAPTER, WE RETURN TO CONSIDER THE JEWISH Nachleben of the Book of the Watchers. Here, we find ourselves on less solid ground. For the preceding inquiry into the Christian transmission of this apocalypse in Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages, our evidence included several primary witnesses to the text itself as well as secondary witnesses representing different geographical locales and varieties of Christianity. By contrast, we have much less data from which to reconstruct its reception-history in late antique and early medieval Judaism, and what data we do possess prove more difficult to interpret.
Apart from the Aramaic fragments from Qumran, the latest of which dates from the first century bce, no Jewish-transmitted copies of our apocalypse, or even excerpts, survive. Moreover, our extant Jewish literature from Late Antiquity contains no explicit statements about the “book(s) of Enoch” akin to the Christian evidence surveyed in Chapters 4, 5, and 6. In later medieval Jewish literature, we find a few references to Enoch's writings, consistent with the resurgence of interest in the figure of Enoch in post-Talmudic times. Even these, however, are opaque. The Zohar, for instance, speaks of a “Book of Enoch” on several occasions, but it is a book “preserved in heaven, which no eye can see” (I 37b).
In addition, questions of dating are complicated by the fact that few Jewish texts from this time are “authored” in the simple sense of the term.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Fallen Angels and the History of Judaism and ChristianityThe Reception of Enochic Literature, pp. 233 - 272Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005