2 papers in the library · publishing 2011-2025
2025 Peter Schäfer
Peter Schäfer provides the reader for the first time with a history of pre-kabbalistic Jewish mysticism. He offers a close reading of the key texts and asks what they wish to convey about the age-old human desire to get close to and communicate with God. The book is directed at specialists as well as at a broader audience.
Rabbinic Texts and the History of Late-Roman Palestine January 13, 2011 Peter Schäfer
This chapter examines the origins of Jewish mysticism and the Hekhalot liteature. The findings do not confirm the trend in modern scholarship which locates the origins of Jewish mysticism in the Qumran literature and wishes to see an unbroken chain of distinctly mystical ideas leading from Qumran through rabbinic Judaism to the Hekhalot literature. The result also suggests that the category of...