Document Type
Article
Language
eng
Format of Original
20 p.
Publication Date
9-2008
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Source Publication
Journal for the Study of Pseudepigrapha
Source ISSN
0951-8207
Original Item ID
doi: 10.1177/0951820708096650
Abstract
The first eight chapters of the Apocalypse of Abraham recount the early years of the young hero of the faith who is depicted as a fighter against the idolatrous practices of his father Terah. The conceptual developments found in this section of the work, especially in the depictions of the idolatrous statues, seem to play an important role in the work's overall retraction of the anthropomorphic understanding of the deity. In the depictions of the idol Bar-Eshath (`the Son of Fire') and some other human-like figures, whose features are vividly reminiscent of the familiar attributes of the anthropomorphic portrayals of the deity in Ezekiel and some other biblical and pseudepigraphical accounts, one can detect subtle polemics with the divine body traditions. This article investigates these conceptual developments in the Apocalypse of Abraham and seeks to understand their place in the larger anti-corporeal ideology of the Slavonic pseudepigraphon.
Recommended Citation
Orlov, Andrei, "The Gods of My Father Terah’: Abraham the Iconoclast and the Polemics with the Divine Body Traditions in the Apocalypse of Abraham" (2008). Theology Faculty Research and Publications. 47.
https://epublications.marquette.edu/theo_fac/47
Comments
Author version. Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha, Volume 18, No. 1 (September 2008): 33-53. DOI. © 2008 SAGE Publications. Used with permission.