Divine Scapegoats: Demonic Mimesis in Early Jewish Mysticism
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Description
Divine Scapegoats is a wide-ranging exploration of the parallels between the heavenly and the demonic in early Jewish apocalyptical accounts. In these materials, antagonists often mirror features of angelic figures, and even those of the Deity himself, an inverse correspondence that implies a belief that the demonic realm is maintained by imitating divine reality. Andrei A. Orlov examines the sacerdotal, messianic, and creational aspects of this mimetic imagery, focusing primarily on two texts from the Slavonic pseudepigrapha: 2 Enoch and the Apocalypse of Abraham. These two works are part of a very special cluster of Jewish apocalyptic texts that exhibit features not only of the apocalyptic worldview but also of the symbolic universe of early Jewish mysticism. The Yom Kippur ritual in the Apocalypse of Abraham, the divine light and darkness of 2 Enoch, and the similarity of mimetic motifs to later developments in the Zohar are of particular importance in Orlov’s consideration.
ISBN
978-1-4384-5583-9
Publication Date
2015
Publisher
SUNY Press
City
Albany, NY
Keywords
Jewish Demonology
Disciplines
Jewish Studies | Religion | Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion
Comments
Table of Contents
Introduction: The right in the left: the divine and the demonic in the Apocalypse of Abraham and 2 Enoch
Part I. Studies in the Apocalypse of Abraham
The curses of Azazel
The cosmological temple in the Apocalypse of Abraham
The demise of the antagonist in the apocalyptic scapegoat tradition
The nourishment of Azazel
The messianic scapegoat in the Apocalypse of Abraham
Part II. Studies in 2 Enoch
Adoil outside the cosmos: God before and after
Creation in the Enochic tradition
The veneration motif in the temptation narrative of the Gospel of Matthew: lessons from the Enochic tradition
Primordial lights: the logos and adoil in the Johannine prologue and 2 Enoch