Menachem Kellner. Maimonides' Confrontation with Mysticism. Oxford and Portland, Oregon: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2006. Pp. xix. +343.Melila Hellner- Eshed. A River Issues Forth from Eden: On Language of Mystical Experience in Zohar (Hebrew). Tel Aviv: Am Oved Publishers Ltd., 2005. Pp. 462.Moshe Halbertal, Concealment and Revelation: Esotericism in Jewish Thought and Ita...
AARON W. HUGHES. The Texture of the Divine: Imagination in Medieval Islamic and Jewish Thought. Bloommgton: Indiana University Press, 2004. Pp. x + 273.Over the past decade, a number of scholars have come to question the existence of a clear dichotomy between philosophy and mysticism in late antique and medieval thought. Scholars for generations have argued the allegiances of such enigmatic...
Reviewed by: Spirit Possession in Judaism: Cases and Contexts from the Middle Ages to the Present Jeremy Dauber Matt Goldish , ed. Spirit Possession in Judaism: Cases and Contexts from the Middle Ages to the Present. Raphael Patai Series in Jewish Folklore and Anthropology. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2003. Pp. 476. On July 1, 1912, S. Anski, the noted Yiddish and Russian writer,...
Josephus describes the dream experience of the high priest Jaddus (Ant. 11.326-328) in a manner reminiscent of dream incubation theophanies in the biblical tradition, especially that of Solomon in 1 Kings 3. In using this nuanced mode of recording incubation dreams, Josephus was able to communicate that the Jews received divine direction under Jaddus without implying that God was manipulated to...