Ontological Aspects of Early Jewish Anthropology. Front Matter
Tyson Putthoff, PhD2017, Ontological Aspects of Early Jewish Anthropology: The Malleable Self and the Presence of God
This is the Front Matter and Introduction (ch. 1) of my book entitled Ontological Aspects of Early Jewish Anthropology: The Malleable Self and the Presence of God (Brill, 2017).
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This is a synopsis of my forthcoming book entitled The Malleable Self and the Presence of God: Ontological Aspects of Early Jewish Anthropology (The Brill Reference Library of Judaism series; Leiden and Boston: Brill, forthcoming). The book explores early Jewish beliefs about how the human self reacts ontologically in God’s presence. Combining contemporary theory with sound exegesis, it demonstrates that early Jews widely considered the self to be intrinsically malleable—its condition is such that it mimics the ontological state of the space it inhabits. In divine space, they believed, the self therefore shares in the ontological state of God himself. The book is critical for students and scholars alike. In putting forth a new framework for conceptualising early Jewish anthropology, it challenges current scholars to rethink not only what early Jews believed about the self but how we approach the subject in the first place.
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Ontological Aspects of Early Jewish Anthropology
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Library of Judaism
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Volume 53
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Ontological Aspects of
Early Jewish Anthropology
The Malleable Self and the Presence of God
By
Tyson L. Putthoff
LEIDEN | BOSTON
For use by the Author only | © 2017 Koninklijke Brill NV
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Putthoff, Tyson L., author.
Title: Ontological aspects of early Jewish anthropology : the malleable self
and the presence of God / by Tyson L. Putthoff.
Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, [2017] | Series: The Brill reference
library of Judaism ; 53 | “This book is a revision of my doctoral thesis,
completed at Durham University”--Acknowledgements. | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016041194 (print) | LCCN 2016043143 (ebook) | ISBN
9789004336407 (hardback) : alk. paper) | ISBN 9789004336414 (e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Theological anthropology--Judaism. | God (Judaism)--History
of doctrines. | God--Proof, Ontological. | Mysticism--Judaism--History.
Classification: LCC BM627 .P88 2017 (print) | LCC BM627 (ebook) | DDC
296.3/2--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016041194
Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface.
issn 1571-5000
isbn 978-90-04-33640-7 (hardback)
isbn 978-90-04-33641-4 (e-book)
Copyright 2017 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands.
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לאנדי
אני אוהב אותך לנצח
∵
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Contents
Acknowledgements xi
List of Abbreviations xiii
1 Introduction: The Self and the Mystical Experience 1
1
Prefatory Remarks 1
2
The Self and Self-transformation 3
2.1 The Study of the Self 3
2.2 Components of Self-transformation 6
2.3 The Mystical Experience 14
2.4 The Mystical Text 18
3
The Status Quaestionis 20
3.1 Scholarly Interest in Self-transformation 20
3.2 Jewish Mysticism and Self-transformation 20
3.3 Moving Forward 27
4
Outline of Study 28
4.1 A Note on the Structure 28
4.2 Chapter 2 28
4.3 Chapter 3 29
4.4 Chapter 4 29
4.5 Chapter 5 30
4.6 Chapter 6 30
4.7 Chapter 7 30
5
Concluding Remarks 31
2 Aseneth, the Anti-Eve: The Re-created Self in an Egyptian
Jewish Tale 32
1
Prefatory Remarks 32
1.1 The Present Chapter 32
1.2 Overview of Joseph and Aseneth 34
2
Conversion and the New Creation 37
2.1 The Anthropos and the Pure Aseneth 37
2.2 The Promise of Transformation 43
2.3 Aseneth’s Holistic Transformation 45
3
A Meal of Astronomical Significance 49
3.1 ‘Bring Me Also a Honeycomb’ 49
3.2 The Honeycomb as the Spirit of Life 51
3.3 Aseneth’s Transformation and the New Creation 57
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viii
4
Contents
3.4 Aseneth Radiant like the Angels 60
3.5 Whom Does Aseneth Represent? 62
Concluding Remarks 66
3 Philo’s Bridge to Perfection: De opificio mundi and the
End of the Self 68
1
Prefatory Remarks 68
1.1 The Present Chapter 68
1.2 Philo Judaeus and De opificio mundi 69
1.3 Overview of De opificio mundi 144 74
2
The Created Ontological State 76
2.1 The Divinity of the Mind 76
2.2 The Self as a Blending of Mortal and Divine 78
3
The Liminal Ontological State 85
3.1 Betwixt and between 85
3.2 Engagement with the Body 91
4
The End of the Self 93
4.1 Telos and Assimilation to God 93
4.2 Assimilation in Plato, Galen and Philo 95
5
Concluding Remarks 102
4 God’s Anthropomorphous House: The Self-constructed Temple
at Qumran 103
1
Prefatory Remarks 103
1.1 The Present Chapter 103
1.2 Overview of Serekh ha-Yahad 107
1.3 1QS and the Sectarian Movement 108
2
The Living Temple in Serekh ha-Yahad 109
2.1 The Community as the Temple 109
2.2 The Communal Experience of Unio Angelica 113
2.3 The Community as Dwelling Space 117
2.4 The Human Temple in 4QFlorilegium 122
3
Self-construction in the Sabbath Shirot 125
3.1 Overview of the Sabbath Shirot 125
3.2 Constructing the Living Temple 126
3.3 The Fusion of the Sectarian Self 134
4
Concluding Remarks 137
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Contents
5 When Disciples Enter Heavenly Space: Self-transformation
in Bavli Sotah 49a 139
1
Prefatory Remarks 139
1.1 The Present Chapter 139
1.2 The Bavli and Tractate Sotah 144
2
Bavli Sotah 49a and the Mystical Experience 145
2.1 Encountering God in His Celestial Temple 145
2.2 The Plight—A World in דחק150
2.3 The Solution—Occupation in Torah 152
2.4 The Reward—Having One’s Prayer Heard 155
3
Self-transformation in Rabbinic Judaism 163
3.1 Change and Satisfaction in Bavli Sotah 49a 163
3.2 Eating God in Early Judaism 167
3.3 When Disciples Enter Heavenly Space 173
4
Concluding Remarks 174
6 Transformed by His Glory: Self-glorification in Hekhalot Zutarti 176
1
Prefatory Remarks 176
1.1 The Present Chapter 176
1.2 Overview of Hekhalot Zutarti 178
2
Ritual Technology and the Descent Within 180
2.1 The Purpose of Hekhalot Zutarti 180
2.2 Making Use of Divine Names 181
2.3 Technologies of the Body 183
3
Self-destruction and Self-glorification 187
3.1 Hekhalot Zutarti 348–350 187
3.2 Transformed by His Glory 189
3.3 Transformation via Death 196
3.4 Descenders as Superhuman Creatures 205
3.5 Able to See God 207
3.6 The Mimetic Body 211
4
Concluding Remarks 212
7 Conclusion: Towards a Mimetic Anthropology of Early Judaism 213
1
Prefatory Remarks 213
1.1 The Foregoing Study 213
1.2 Our Approach to the Self 213
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ix
x
Contents
2
3
The Results of Our Study 215
2.1 Summarising the Results 215
2.2 Chapter 2 215
2.3 Chapter 3 217
2.4 Chapter 4 218
2.5 Chapter 5 220
2.6 Chapter 6 221
Concluding Remarks 223
3.1 Towards a Mimetic Anthropology 223
3.2 Limitations and Implications 225
Bibliography 227
Primary Texts 227
Secondary Literature
Index of Authors 289
Index of Sources 295
Index of Subjects 309
231
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Acknowledgements
This book is a revision of my doctoral thesis, completed at Durham University
under the guidance of John Barclay, Robert Hayward and Lutz Doering (now at
Münster). The subject matter—what happens to humans when they encounter God—caught my interest over a decade ago, in my first stint at Durham,
while studying with Stephen Barton (my M.A. supervisor), Douglas Davies,
John Barclay and Robert Hayward. This same subject continued both to fascinate and confuse me at Missouri State University, where I had the privilege of
working with Mark Given (my M.A. supervisor), Austra Reinis, Leslie Baynes,
Martha Finch, John Schmalzbauer and John Llewellyn.
A small blurb at the front of a book will never truly express my gratitude
to all of those who taught, guided, encouraged and mentored me along the
way. I must first thank my supervisors: Stephen at Durham, Mark at Missouri
State and John, Robert and Lutz at Durham. Their willingness to take on a very
excited but naïve researcher was a risky decision that has demanded great
patience, even up to the revision and completion of this book. They ensured
that I not only complete my work but that I do it correctly, even if that means
taking a bit longer. I have a long way to go, but I am a better person as a result
of my time with these men. I only hope I can emulate them in my own life and
work.
I am grateful to everyone who discussed, read and gave feedback on this
book at different points over the last several years. Thanks to Philip Alexander, Stuart Weeks, Crispin Fletcher-Louis, James Dunn, Andrew Lincoln, Lance
Barrick, Michael Lakey, Ben Wold, Emmanuel Rehfeld, Volker Rabens, David
Litwa, Ben Blackwell, Meron Piotrkowski, Reuven Genz, Henrik Engholm,
Marius Sollund, Kristian Bendoraitis, Jason Silverman, Jason McCann, Lidia
Matassa, Timothy Knowlton, Mike Seaman, Marlin Blankenship, Monty Stallings, Thomas Carlson, Mike Thompson, Benjamin Keogh, Josh Putthoff, Emily
Putthoff, Preston Putthoff and Joey Silver.
I cannot express how thankful I am for my father- and mother-in-law, John
and Janna Boyer. They have opened their home and have been a constant support and encouragement to my family and me. Their friendship is a treasure,
and it was a life line especially during our struggles with fertility. I am truly
grateful for all that they have done for us.
I am indebted to my parents, John and Pam Putthoff, who raised me to pursue my passion no matter how difficult that pursuit might be. Their constant
love, support, discipline and prayer prepared me for my discovery of this path.
I am thankful for their constant encouragement even today.
For use by the Author only | © 2017 Koninklijke Brill NV
xii
Acknowledgements
I cannot adequately give thanks for and to the most incredible blessings
Andi and I can ever have imagined: Addie Pearl, Zevie Rose and Judah John.
Thank you, Addie, Zevie and Judah, for giving dada a purpose. Thank you for
being patient with me. Thank you for playing games, doing science experiments and creating artwork with me. And thank you for the hugs, kisses and
cuddles. You make me happy, and I am so proud of you—even if you are kind
of ornery. I cannot imagine life without you. I love you.
And the most difficult paragraph of the entire book: trying to express how
grateful I am for and to my beautiful wife, Andi. During and after my time as a
doctoral student, Andi also completed her third and fourth college degrees as
well, taking home all the awards and honours possible. Remarkably, though,
she did so while also working and being a full-time mom. I still do not know
how she does it. Andi is the embodiment of the subject of this book. As the
reader will see, the book is about the encounter with God. It is about the otherworldly experience. And it is about transformation. When I am with Andi,
I see God. She takes me to another place. And because of her, I am changed—
I am a better man. When I read about ancient people who believe they saw
God face to face, I know what they mean. In my heart, I know that when I see
Andi, I too see God’s face. I love you, Andi.
I must express my deepest gratitude to everyone at Brill who have made this
possible: to Meghan Connolly for her patience with me during the publishing
process; to Katelyn Chin, Alan Avery-Peck and William Scott Green for making
this book part of the prestigious The Brill Reference Library of Judaism series;
and to the anonymous peer reviewer, whose insightful remarks led to valuable
changes.
For use by the Author only | © 2017 Koninklijke Brill NV
List of Abbreviations
Primary Texts
Abot. R. Nat.
Abr.
Agr.
Ant.
Antr. Nymph.
Apoc. Ab.
Apoc. Sedr.
Ascen. Isa.
b.
B. Bat.
2 Bar.
3 Bar.
Ber.
C. Ap.
Conf.
Congr.
Corp. Herm.
Det.
1 En.
2 En.
3 En.
Ezek. Trag.
4 Ezra
Georg.
Gk. Apoc. Ezra
Hag.
Hul.
hr
hz
Iliad
Jos.
Jos. Asen.
Jub
Ketub.
l.a.b.
’Abot of Rabbi Nathan
Philo, De Abrahamo
Philo, De agricultura
Josephus, Jewish Antiquities
Porphyry, De antro nympharum
Apocalypse of Abraham
Apocalypse of Sedrach
Martyrdom and Ascension of Isaiah 6–11
Babylonian Talmud (Bavli)
Baba Batra
2 Baruch (Syriac Apocalypse)
3 Baruch (Greek Apocalypse)
Berakhot
Josephus, Contra Apion
Philo, De confusione linguarum
Philo, De congressu eruditionis gratia
Corpus Hermeticum
Philo, Quod Deterius Potiori insidari soleat
1 Enoch (Ethiopic Apocalypse)
2 Enoch (Slavonic Apocalypse)
3 Enoch (Hebrew Apocalypse)
Ezekiel the Tragedian
4 Ezra
Vergil, Georgica
Greek Apocalypse of Ezra
Hagigah
Hullin
Hekhalot Rabbati
Hekhalot Zutarti
Homer, Iliad
Philo, De Iosepho
Joseph and Aseneth
Jubilees
Ketubim
Liber antiquitatum biblicarum (Pseudo-Philo)
For use by the Author only | © 2017 Koninklijke Brill NV
xiv
Let. Aris.
m.
Midr.
2 Macc.
3 Macc.
4 Macc.
Meg.
Metam.
Migr.
mm
mr
Nat.
Nat. Fac.
Od.
Odes. Sol.
Opif.
Pesiq. Rab.
Pesiq. Rab Kah.
Phaedr.
Pirqe R. El.
Plant.
Ps-J.
Pss. Sol.
qe
Qidd.
Ques. Ezra
Rab.
Rep.
Roš Haš.
Šabb.
Sanh.
sh
ShP
Sib. Or.
Spec.
Somn.
Soph.
sq
Symp.
t.
Ta’an.
List of Abbreviations
Letter of Aristeas
Mishnah
Midrash
2 Maccabees
3 Maccabees
4 Maccabees
Megillah
Ovid, Metamorphoses
Philo, De migratione Abrahami
Ma’aseh Merkavah
Merkavah Rabbah
Pliny the Elder, Naturalis historia
Galen, On the Natural Faculties
Homer, Odyssey
Odes of Solomon
Philo, De opificio mundi
Pesiqta Rabbati
Pesiqta de Rab Kahana
Plato, Phaedrus
Pirqe Rabbi Eliezer
Philo, De plantatione
(Targum) Pseudo-Jonathan
Psalms of Solomon
Quaestiones et solutiones in Exodum i, ii
Qiddushin
Questions of Ezra
Rabbah (+ biblical book)
Plato, Republic
Roš Hašanah
Šabbat
Sanhedrin
Sefer Hekhalot
Sar ha-Panim
Sibylline Oracles
Philo, De specialibus legibus
Philo, De somniis
Plato, Sophist
Shiur Qomah
Plato, Symposium
Tosefta
Ta’anit
For use by the Author only | © 2017 Koninklijke Brill NV
List of Abbreviations
Tg.
T. Ab.
T. Isaac
T. Job
T. Levi
Vis. Ezra
Wis
y.
xv
Targum
Testament of Abraham
Testament of Isaac
Testament of Job
Testament of Levi
Vision of Ezra
Wisdom
Jerusalem Talmud (Yerushalmi)
Secondary Literature
ab
abd
abrl
acnt
agju
agsu
AJPh
ajsr
algj
ams
anrw
antc
antj
aos
ap
asor
asorms
bagd
BASORSup
bbc
bbhr
bdag
Anchor Bible
Anchor Bible Dictionary
Anchor Bible Reference Library
Augsburg Commentaries on the New Testament
Arbeiten zur Geschichte des antiken Judentums und des
Urchristentums
Arbeiten zur Geschichte des Spätjudentums und Urchristentums
American Journal of Philology
Association for Jewish Studies Review
Arbeiten zur Literatur und Geschichte des hellenistischen Judentums
The Artscroll Mesorah Series
Aufstieg und Niedergang der Römischen Welt: Geschichte und Kultur
Roms im Spiegel der neueren Forschung. Edited by Hans Temporini and
Wolfgang Haase. Berlin, 1972–Present
Abingdon New Testament Commentaries
Arbeiten zum Neuen Testament und Judentum
American Oriental Society
Ancient Philosophies
American Schools of Oriental Research
American Schools of Oriental Research Monograph Series
Bauer, W., W.F. Arndt, F.W. Gingrich, and F.W. Danker. Greek-English
Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. 2d
ed. Chicago, 1979
Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research Supplement
Series
Broadman Bible Commentaries
Blackwell Brief Histories of Religion
A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian
Literature. 3d ed. Bauer, Walter. Revised, Edited and Translated by F.
For use by the Author only | © 2017 Koninklijke Brill NV
xvi
List of Abbreviations
Wilbur Gingrich, William F. Arndt and Frederick W. Danker. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2000
bdb
The New Brown-Driver-Briggs-Gesenius Hebrew and English Lexicon.
Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs. Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1979
beataj
Beiträge zur Erforschung des Alten Testaments und des antiken
Judentum
becnt
Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament
bel
Bibliotheca Ephemeridum theologicarum Lovaniensium
bet
Beiheft zur Evangelischen Theologie
bis
Biblical Interpretation Series
bjs
Brown Judaic Studies
bntc
Black’s New Testament Commentaries
Brockelmann Carolo Brockelmann. Lexicon Syriacum. 2d Edition. Halis Saxonum,
Sumptibus Max Niemeyer, 1928
brs
The Biblical Resource Series
bsgrt
Bibliotheca scriptorium Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana
bsjs
Brill’s Series in Jewish Studies
bsoas
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies
bzwkk
Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und
die Kunde der älteren Kirche
cbet
Contributions to Biblical Exegesis and Theology
cbq
Catholic Biblical Quarterly
cbqms
Catholic Biblical Quarterly Monograph Series
ccp
Cambridge Companions to Philosophy
ccwjcw
Cambridge Commentaries on Writings of the Jewish and Christian
World, 200 bc to ad 200
cdsse
The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English. Translated by Geza Vermes.
5th rev. ed. London: Penguin Books, 1998
ch
Church History
chj
The Cambridge History of Judaism, Volume 4: The Late Roman-Rabbinic
Period. Edited by Steven T. Katz. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2006
cjs
Classics in Judaic Studies
coqg
Christian Origins and the Question of God
Costaz
Louis Costaz, S.J. Dictionnaire Syriaque-Français: Syriac-English Dictionary. 3d ed. Beyrouth: Dar El-Machreq, 2002
cp
Classical Philosophy
cpp
Central Problems of Philosophy
cq
Classical Quarterly
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List of Abbreviations
cq ns
cqs
cr
crint
cs
csco
cshjtyi
csr
csrs
cw
djd
dop
dsd
eb
ecl
edss
ejl
EncJud
esec
EvQ
EvT
fat
fcbss
fjb
frlant
FthS
FzB
hbt
hft
hl 1885
hnt
hntc
hr
hss
htknt
htr
huca
icc
iej
xvii
Church Quarterly New Series
Companion to the Qumran Scrolls
Currents in Research
Compendia rerum Iudaicarum ad Novum Testamentum
Collected Studies
Corpus scriptorium christianorum orientalium
Chicago Studies in the History of Judaism
Contributions to the Study of Religion
Cognitive Science in Religion Series
Classical World
Discoveries in the Judean Desert
Dumbarton Oaks Papers
Dead Sea Discoveries
Expositor’s Bible
Early Christianity and its Literature
Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls
Early Judaism and its Literature
Encyclopedia Judaica. Edited by Fred Skolnik and Michael Berenbaum.
22 vols. 2d ed. Detroit: Macmillan Reference, 2007
Emory Studies in Early Christianity
Evangelical Quarterly
Evangelische Theologie
Forschungen zum Alten Testament
Feminist Companion to the Bible, Second Series
Frankfurter Judaistische Beitrage
Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments
Freiburg theologische Studien
Forschung zur Bibel
Horizons in Biblical Theology
Handbooks for Translators
The Hibbert Lectures 1885
Handbuch zum Neuen Testament
Harper’s New Testament Commentaries
History of Religions
Harvard Semitic Studies
Herders theologischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament
Harvard Theological Review
Hebrew Union College Annual
International Critical Commentary
Israel Exploration Journal
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ios
itc
iupac
jaar
jaf
jaos
Jastrow
jbl
jbq
jbr
jcc
Jennings
jets
jjs
jqr
jqr ns
jr
jsj
JSJTSup
jsnt
JSNTSup
jsor
jsot
JSOTSup
jsp
JSPSup
jsq
jssr
jsttc
jtc
jtecl
jts
lbiy
lbs
List of Abbreviations
Israel Oriental Studies
International Theological Commentary
International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry
Journal of the American Academy of Religion
Journal of American Folklore
Journal of the American Oriental Society
Marcus Jastrow. A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and
Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature. 2d ed. New York: Putnam,
1903
Journal of Biblical Literature
Jewish Bible Quarterly
Journal of Bible and Religion
Jewish Culture and Contexts
William Jennings. Lexicon to the Syriac New Testament (Peshitta): With
Copious References, Dictions, Names of Persons and Places and Some Various Readings Found in the Curetonian, Sinaitic Palimpsest Philoxenian
& Other mss. Revised by Ulric Gantillon. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1926
Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
Journal of Jewish Studies
Jewish Quarterly Review
Jewish Quarterly Review New Series
Journal of Religion
Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic, and Roman
Periods
Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought Supplement
Journal for the Study of the New Testament
Journal for the Study of the New Testament: Supplement Series
Journal of the Society of Oriental Research
Journal for the Study of the Old Testament
Journal for the Study of the Old Testament: Supplement Series
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha: Supplement Series
Jewish Studies Quarterly
Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion
Jewish Studies at the Turn of the Twentieth Century
Journal for Theology and Church
Jewish Traditions in Early Christian Literature
Journal of Theological Studies
Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook
Library of Biblical Studies
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List of Abbreviations
lcl
ljppstt
lljc
lsts
mh
mj
Moulton and Milligan
na
nac
najp
ncb
ncbc
nf
nhs
nibcnt
nicnt
nidntt
nigtc
nips
nivhno
NovT
NovTSup
ntl
ntoa
nts
ntt
Numen
osap
otp
pi: ceush
pa
xix
Loeb Classical Library
Literature of the Jewish People in the Second Temple Period and the Talmud
The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization
Library of Second Temple Studies
Magic in History
Modern Judaism
Moulton, James Hope, and George Milligan. The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament. London: Hodder & Stoughton,
1930
Neutestamentliche Abhandlungen
New American Commentary
North American Journal of Psychology
New Century Bible
New Cambridge Bible Commentary
Neutestamentliche Forschungen
Nag Hammadi Studies
New International Bible Commentary on the New
Testament
New International Commentary on the New Testament
New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology.
Edited by Colin Brown. 4 vols. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1975–1985
New International Greek Testament Commentary
History and Philosophy of Logic
Nederlands intituut voor het nabije oosten: studia francisci
scholten memoriae dicata
Novum Testamentum
Novum Testamentum Supplements
New Testament Library
Novum testamentum et orbis antiquus
New Testament Studies
New Testament Theology
Numen: International Review for the History of Religions
Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy
Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. 2 vols. Edited by James H.
Charlesworth. New York: Doubleday, 1983–1985
Pasts Incorporated: Central European University Studies in
the Humanities
Philosophia antiqua
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pacs
peajsc
pr
pscchshmc
ptsdssp
pvtg
qd
qr
rbl
RelSoc
ResQ
RevQ
rgrw
rp
rr
rs
rt
rvg
sa
sais
sbec
sbl
sblds
sblms
sblrbs
sblsp
SBLSymS
sbt
sdssrl
seca
sgka
sgpsps
shps
shr
sj
sjla
sjsj
List of Abbreviations
Philo of Alexandria Commentary Series
Proceedings of the European Association for Jewish Studies Congree
Philosophical Review
Protocol Series of the Colloquies. Center for Hermeneutical Studies
in Hellenistic and Modern Culture
Princeton Theological Seminary Dead Sea Scrolls Project
Pseudepigrapha Veteris Testamenti Graece
Quaestiones disputatae
Quarterly Review
Review of Biblical Literature
Religion and Society
Restoration Quarterly
Revue de Qumran
Religions in the Graeco-Roman World
Religious Perspectives
Review of Religion
Religious Studies
Religion and Theology
Religionsgeschichtliche Volksbücher für die deutsche christliche
Gegenwart
Scriptores Aethiopici
Studies in the Aramaic Interpretation of Scripture
Studies in the Bible and Early Christianity
Society of Biblical Literature
Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series
Society of Biblical Literature Monograph Series
Society of Biblical Literature Resources for Biblical Study
Society of Biblical Literature Seminar Papers
Society of Biblical Literature Symposium Series
Studies in Biblical Theology
Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature
Studies on Early Christian Apocrypha
Studien zur Geschichte und Kultur des altertums
Structure and Growth of Philosophic Systems from Plato to Spinoza
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science
Studies in the History of Religions
Studia Judaica
Studies in Judaism in Late Antiquity
Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism
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List of Abbreviations
sl
Smith
snt
sntsms
sntw
spa
Spec
SPhA
sr
ss
stdj
StPB
StudBib
sunt
sunysj
svtp
tb
tbn
tdnt
tdot
thknt
tj
tlot
tntc
tsaj
unt
vc
VCSup
ve
vt
VTSup
wbc
WdF
wec
wp
ws
wunt
xxi
Sammlung theologischer Lehrbücher
J. Payne Smith. A Compendious Syriac Dictionary: Founded upon the Thesaurus Syriacus of R. Payne Smith. Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1998
Studien zum Neuen Testament
Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series
Studies of the New Testament and its World
Studia Philonica Annual
Speculum
Studies in Philo of Alexandria
Studies in Religion
Schleier und Schwelle
Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah
Studia Post-Biblica
Studia Biblica
Studien zur Umwelt des Neuen Testaments
State University of New York Series in Judaica
Studia in Veteris Testamenti Pseudepigrapha
Tyndale Bulletin
Themes in Biblical Narrative
Theological Dictionary of the New Testament
Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament
Theologischer Handkommentar zum Neuen Testament
Theologische Jahrbücher
Theological Lexicon of the Old Testament
Tyndale New Testament Commentaries
Texte und Studien zum antiken Judentum
Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament
Vigiliae Christianae
Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae
Vox evangelica
Vetus Testamentum
Supplements to Vetus Testamentum
Word Biblical Commentary
Wege der Forschung
The Wycliffe Exegetical Commentary
Working Papers, Faculty of Theology, Biblical Studies Section, University of Copenhagen
World Spirituality
Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament
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List of Abbreviations
zaw
znw
Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft
Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und die Kunde der älteren
Kirche
Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und die Kunde der älteren
Kirche
zwkk
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chapter 1
Introduction: The Self and the Mystical Experience
1
Prefatory Remarks
This monograph is an inquiry into early Jewish beliefs and assumptions about
how the human self reacts ontologically in God’s presence.1 It asks what early
Jews believe or assume to happen to the ontology of the self, by which is meant
the nature, essence, condition, composition, constitution, construction, organisation, make-up or stuff of the self, in the presence of God. It examines early
Jewish writings that feature tales of or discussions about humans who undergo
self-transformation before God and seeks to understand why and how the self
changes when it enters God’s space.
The simple answer to the question what do early Jews believe happens to
the self in God’s presence? is that, in general, they believe it to become radically different. Biblical and extra-biblical tradition is ripe with examples about
humans who encounter God and undergo change. But this simple answer
does not tell us in what sense they believe the human self to become different.
Nor, more importantly, does this tell us anything about the deeper philosophical and anthropological assumptions underlying early Jewish conceptions of
the self. Without further inquiry into the matter, we learn nothing from these
accounts about early Jewish anthropology, even though they are brimming
with such assumptions.
Therefore, through a fresh examination of important primary texts, and
with an innovative appropriation of philosophical, anthropological and religious theory, I shall offer a new conceptualisation of the self in early Judaism.
My aim is to reach a more profound understanding of how the human self
changes when in contact with the divine. I hope to offer fresh ways of thinking about early Jewish anthropology and about the ontological relationship
between the human self and the divine in early Judaism.
I approach the subject by looking at early Jewish texts in which a human (or
humans) is described or depicted as encountering the divine and undergoes
ontological transformation. In such texts, we can see what the self looks like
when change begins, what it becomes or has the potential to become in the
1 For further discussion on my use of ‘ontology’, ‘ontological’ and ‘ontologically’, see below
§2.3.2.
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2
chapter 1
end and what factors are at play throughout. Accounts of mystical transformation are therefore prime terrain on which to conduct an investigation of early
Jewish beliefs about the ontological state of the self in God’s presence.
Given the importance of this subject for our understanding of early Judaism, Paul and the New Testament, it is vital that a study such as mine be produced. It constructs a framework that scholars can use to analyse important
Jewish mystical texts which are implicitly concerned with the nature of the
self. It provides a ‘one-stop’ resource to which scholars can refer to understand
better the Jewish contribution to a fascinating international, multidisciplinary
conversation on the self. And it expands on current scholarship on the self
and self-transformation in significant ways, addressing salient questions in the
field, raising new questions for further investigation and moving beyond current discussions to investigate more fully what others are only asking in part.
The book addresses, for example, the materiality-immateriality question
that is so popular in academic discussion today. It asks, that is to say, if the
transformation that the self experiences is a material change, affecting the
body in a physical manner, or if it is purely immaterial. It enquires about unio
mystica, which has troubled scholars of Jewish mysticism for over a century,
and asks if there is any sense in which the self ever unites with God during its
encounter with him. In other words, do early Jews talk about the boundaries
of the self and how one’s boundaries react to or interact with those of God? It
explores the relationship between the body and soul, asking how the presence
of God affects the self in toto. And what about the question of the divine image.
If humanity was created ‘in the image of God’, is there a sense in which the self
recovers this image during transformation?
The book is both descriptive and prescriptive and both emic and etic. Each
chapter begins by scrutinising the texts that best represent the specific variety
of Judaism under examination. However, since my interest is both in the texts
and in the anthropological assumptions that underlie them, I shall draw on
relevant anthropological, philosophical and theoretical models to help interpret them. Both ancient and modern thinkers have gone to great lengths to
understand the self. Their insights will prove quite useful in our attempt to
understand similar ideas in early Judaism.
Let me be clear about my use of the anthropological, philosophical and
theoretical models in my study. My chief interest is in early Jewish beliefs and
assumptions about what happens to the human self when in God’s presence. It
is not in proving or propagating any particular theory or model. My use of such
theories and models is thus for the purpose of gaining a better understanding of the primary texts and the beliefs and assumptions of those Jews behind
them—that is, the texts themselves as well as the beliefs and assumptions of
their composers and proprietors.
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introduction
3
Let us turn now to some preliminary matters that will help set the stage for
the following investigation. We begin with a discussion of how scholars outside
of our field approach the self and self-transformation and how I will be using
terms like self, mystical and ontology (§2), after which we turn to an overview
of research into these same matters among scholars of Jewish mysticism (§3). I
will then explain my choice of primary texts and offer an outline of study (§4).
2
The Self and Self-transformation
2.1
The Study of the Self
‘Theoretically speaking’, writes Louis Komjathy, ‘conceptions of self are ubiquitous. Every discussion, whether anthropological, historical, philosophical, psychological, or scientific, assumes some conception of self’.2 Since our interest
lies in early Jewish conceptions of the self, it will be useful to survey relevant
scholarship on this enigmatic thing. Drawing on the way others approach it, we
shall be able to construct a framework that will help us understand it in early
Judaism.
2.1.1
The Self in Academic Engagement
The self has been approached from many vantage points.3 Philosophers,4 psychologists,5 religionists,6 theologians,7 scientists8 and even researchers of the
2 Louis Komjathy, Cultivating Perfection: Mysticism and Self Transformation in Early Quanzhen
Daoism (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 64.
3 See esp. Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1989); Peter Heehs, Writing the Self: Diaries, Memoirs, and the
History of the Self (New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2013). See also Thomas M. Brinthaupt
and Richard P. Lipka, ed., The Self: Definitional and Methodological Issues (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992); Shaun Gallagher and Jonathan Shear, ed., Models of the Self
(Bowling Green, Oh.: Imprint Academic, 1999).
4 See Pauliina Remes and Juha Sihvola, ed., Ancient Philosophy of the Self (London: Springer,
2008); Troy Wilson Organ, Philosophy and the Self: East and West (Cranbury, nj: Associated University Presses, 1987). But see further A.E. Pitson, Hume’s Philosophy of the Self
(London: Routledge, 2002); Pauliina Remes, Plotinus on Self: The Philosophy of ‘We’ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007); Geoffrey Madell, The Essence of the Self: In Defense
of the Simple View of Personal Identity (New York: Routledge, 2014); Gerard J.P. O’Daly, Plotinus’ Philosophy of the Self (New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1973); Nikunja Vihari Banerjee,
Kant’s Philosophy of the Self (New Delhi: Arnold-Heinemann Publishers, 1974).
5 See esp. Roy F. Baumeister, ‘The Self’, in The Handbook of Social Psychology, ed. Daniel
T. Gilbert, Susan T. Fiske and Gardner Lindzey, 4th ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1998), 680–740; Idem, ed., The Self in Social Psychology (New York: Psychology Press, 2000);
Constantine Sedikides and Steven J. Spencer, ed. The self (New York: Psychology Press, 2007);
For use by the Author only | © 2017 Koninklijke Brill NV
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‘technoself’9 have sought to understand it from different angles. Indeed, recent
decades have seen important progress in our understanding of the self and
self-transformation.10 In the introduction to their work on self-transformation
in the History of Religions, David Shulman and Guy Stroumsa write:
Why do we find in all the major civilizations, and perhaps in all human
cultures, this insistence on the need for the person to change in radical
6
7
8
9
10
Mark R. Leary and June Price Tangney, ed., Handbook of Self and Identity, 2d ed.
(New York: Guilford Press, 2012); Susan T. Fiske, ‘The Self: Social to the Core’, in Social
Beings: A Core Motives Approach to Social Psychology, ed. eadem (Hoboken, nj: Wiley,
2004), 169–214; Jonathon D. Brown, The Self (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1998).
See esp. David Brakke, Michael L. Satlow and Steven Weitzman, ed., Religion and the Self
in Antiquity (Bloomington, In.: Indiana University Press, 2005). See also Wayne Proudfoot,
God and the Self: Three Types of Philosophy of Religion (Lewisburg, Pa.: Buckness University Press, 1976); Basit Bilal Koshul and Steven Kepnes, Scripture, Reason, and the Contemporary Islam-West Encounter: Studying the ‘Other’, Understanding the ‘Self’ (New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).
Esp. helpful is Léon Turner, Theology, Psychology and the Plural Self (Burlington, Vt.:
Ashgate, 2008). See also Jan-Olav Henriksen, Relating God and the Self: Dynamic Interplay
(Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2013); Sarah Coakley, God, Sexuality and the Self: An Essay ‘On the
Trinity’ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013).
See e.g. Shinobu Kitayama and Jiyoung Park, ‘Cultural Neuroscience of the Self: Understanding the Social Grounding of the Brain’, Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience
5 (2010): 111–29; Stanley B. Klein, ‘The Self and Science: Is it Time for a New Approach to
the Study of Human Experience?’, Current Directions in Psychological Science 21 (2012):
253–57; Anthony Elliott, Concepts of the Self (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2014). See also Jennifer Ouellette, Me, Myself, and Why: Searching for the Science of Self (New York: Penguin
Books, 2014); Bruce Edward Fleming, Science and the Self: The Scale of Knowledge (Dallas,
Tx.: University Press of America, 2004).
Rocci Luppicini, Handbook of Research on Technoself: Identity in a Technological Society
(Hershey, Pa.: Information Science Reference, 2013); Yasmine Abbas and Fred Dervin, Digital Technologies of the Self (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009).
See also Stef Aupers and Dick Houtman, ed., Religions of Modernity: Relocating the Sacred
to the Self and the Digital (Leiden: Brill, 2010).
See David Shulman and Guy G. Stroumsa, ed., Self & Self-Transformation in the History of
Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002); Jan Assmann and Guy G. Stroumsa, ed.,
Transformations of the Inner Self in Ancient Religions (Leiden: Brill, 1999); Shaul Shaked,
Dualism in Transformation: Varieties of Religion in Sasanian Iran (London: School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 1994); cf. Galit Hasan-Rokem and David
Shulman, Untying the Knot: On Riddles and Other Enigmatic Modes (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996); David Shulman and Guy G. Stroumsa, ed., Dream Cultures: Explorations in the Comparative History of Dreaming (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).
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introduction
5
ways? We are not content with who we are, individually or collectively.
Even an ideal of contentment seems to require constant effort on the
part of the individual, who is normally torn apart by the inner struggles
of fantasy, frustration, and hope. Beyond this, however, lies the fact that
human existence as such is almost inevitably felt to be lacking in critical
ways—limited in its potential for understanding, preyed upon by death
and illness, subject to the experience of partiality and repeated frustration, given to possession by alien forces from without or from within, and
so on. Each culture addresses and articulates this perceived lack in terms
of its own assumptions about reality.11
The self can have any number of meanings and has different nuances from one
culture to the next. However, in spite of their differences, cultural conceptions
of the self always include some view of it as flawed and in need of change.
This ‘perceived lack’ leads to the ubiquitous ‘insistence on the need for the
person to change in radical ways’, or for ‘some form of radical transformation,
an undoing and refashioning of the person’.12 The self and self-transformation
go hand in hand. By nature, the self is a malleable entity. For while it exists in
a state of lacking, selfhood is not static but highly dynamic and ever-changing.
2.1.2
The Self in Biblical and Jewish Studies
Unfortunately, even though deeper serious investigation of the self from a
biblical or Jewish studies perspective continues to grow (see below §3), much
work remains in order for us truly to understand early Jewish anthropology.
While they do not specifically refer to these fields, Shulman and Sroumsa do
capture the broader situation:
Our goal in this volume is to explore a related aspect of this problem
which seems not to have elicited focused attention. While Mauss searched
for the cultural variations in the idea of the person throughout the great
civilizations, we explore here the inherently transformative quality of
the self as culturally conceived and understood, in specific cultural and
religious systems—its structured tendencies to shift, to split, to unravel,
to disappear, to cumulate new levels or parts, to disencumber itself of
levels or parts, to refashion, deepen, or diminish its own self-awareness
in changing contexts, and so on, all of these processes occurring either
11
12
David Shulman and Guy G. Stroumsa, ‘Introduction: Persons, Passages, and Shifting Cultural Space’, in Self & Self-Transformation in the History of Religion (ed. Idem), 3.
Ibid., 3, 4.
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voluntarily or not, but very often through heavily determined and ritualized acts. Moreover, we are interested in the catalytic effect such changes, and such conceptualizations, have had upon the institutional and
dynamic core of each given civilization—that is, the power of the transformed or self-transforming self to work transformation on the containing cultural context. The core issues have to do with the impact of both
implicit and explicit religious views and attitudes upon anthropology,
that is, perceptions of the person and of his or her boundaries and relations with the surrounding world. These issues become perspicuous in a
comparative framework that takes account of the specificities of variation in self and self-transformation in a wide range of cultures, societies,
and religions.13
Shulman and Stroumsa’s aim is to explore self-transformation in the History
of Religions, while ours is to explore the same subject in early Judaism. As I
discuss more fully below in §3, the fields of biblical and Jewish studies are in
need of further clarification into matters related to the self. Great work is being
done on self-transformation in these fields. But drawing into the conversation
the various philosophical and theoretical tools that those in the History of Religions are using to understand the self will undoubtedly move the conversation
forward in positive and challenging ways. That is what this examination aims
to do.
2.2
Components of Self-transformation
If the self is so elusive, what might an examination like ours look like? How
shall we know if we have been successful in our inquiry into ontological aspects of the self? What factors or components of self-transformation must we
address? Once again, Shulman and Stroumsa provide a useful starting point.
Based on their research, they offer the following statement:
[W]e have found in each case notions of what we will continue to call
self-transformation…In all the cases we have examined, transformation is
regularly patterned and culturally determined—never chaotic, random,
or unstructured. The kind of transformation(s) a culture puts forward as
a goal or possibility for human life always expresses the primary axioms,
conflicts, and intuitions that make up its particular world.14
13
14
Ibid., 4.
Ibid.; cf. Assmann and Stroumsa, ‘Introduction’, in Transformations of the Inner Self (ed.
Idem), 4.
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introduction
7
This statement serves as an entry into our examination of early Jewish anthropology. Even if we cannot offer a definition of the self, any investigation into
the self (and self-transformation) must have a framework for conceptualising
it. I suggest, based on Shulman and Stroumsa’s assessment, that a study such
as ours must address three components, which serve as talking points in the
following chapters.
2.2.1
Component 1: The Self as Culturally Specific
While certain components of the self are cross-cultural, it is by and large a
culturally specific entity. Every culture pictures the self within their own narratives and worldviews.15 Or as Marcel Mauss has observed, the self (moi) has assumed ‘a series of forms…in the course of human societies’ (la série des formes
que ce concept…dans la vie des hommes des sociétés).16 It naturally follows,
then, that self-transformation will have some level of cultural specificity as well.
Let me offer an example as to why this is important for our study and for
our field more broadly. Scholars debate whether or not unio mystica is present in early forms of Jewish mysticism. Some insist that it has no place in any
strand of early Jewish thinking, maintaining that humans never achieve union
or unification with God during the mystical encounter.17 The argument of this
camp is twofold. First, unio mystica strictly designates the complete dissolution of boundaries between human and God, where the human loses him- or
herself in the Godhead. Second, Judaism is thoroughly monotheistic. For a Jew
to believe that he or she can achieve this type of union or unification with God
15
16
17
Marcel Mauss, ‘Une catégorie de l’esprit humain: La notion de personne, celle de “moi”
(1938)’, in Sociologie et anthropologie (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1950), 331–62;
cf. Idem, ‘A Category of the Human Mind: The Notion of Person; the Notion of Self’ (trans.
W.D. Halls), in The Category of the Person: Anthropology, Philosophy, History, ed. Michael
Carrithers, Steven Collins and Steven Lukes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1985), 1–25; Taylor, Sources of the Self, ix–x, 27.
Mauss, ‘Une catégorie de l’esprit humain’, 337.
See Peter Schäfer, The Origins of Jewish Mysticism (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009), who
defines unio mystica as ‘the unification of the human self with divine reality’ (p. 3); ‘the
mystical union of the individual with God’ (p. 6). Cf. Idem, ‘Ekstase, Vision und unio mystica in der frühen jüdischen Mystik’, in Schleier und Schwelle: Archäologie der literarischen
Kommunikation v, Volume 2: Geheimnis und Offenbarung, ed. Aleida Assmann and Jan
Assmann (Munich: Fink, 1988), 89–104. But see Moshe Idel, Kabbalah: New Perspectives
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988), 59–73, whom Schäfer insists ‘takes the idea of
unio mystica to the extreme’ (The Origins of Jewish Mysticism, 19); Crispin H.T. FletcherLouis, All the Glory of Adam: Liturgical Anthropology in the Dead Sea Scrolls (Leiden: Brill,
2002), 3.
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is thus to violate this tenet of the Jewish religion. Based on these two points,
some scholars argue that if mysticism is present in early Judaism, and some
doubt that it is, it never takes the form of unio mystica.
This may well be the case. The idea that the human self can unite with God
in this sense may be absent from early Judaism. However, the approach to this
question has been rather questionable. So even at this point in the history of
scholarship on Jewish mysticism, it is still quite possible that unio mystica is
present in early Judaism but that some have simply not approached the question in a way that allows this to be an option. Scholars against this view insist
that unio mystica can mean only one thing: the complete union or unification
with God. But this understanding seems a little restrictive. Not only does it
read the primary texts through a narrow lens, but it assumes a priori that early
Jewish monotheism excludes the possibility of any form of union between
human and God. It takes a one-size-fits-all approach to a seemingly vast and
diverse question.
But what if there is no one-size-fits-all answer? What if there were a way to
nuance the question, to differentiate between, perhaps, one type of union and
another? Might then we be able to offer both a yes and no rather than either
a yes or no to the question? This seems a better approach, even if at the end
we arrive at the same negative answer. I suggest that we approach this and
similar questions through a discussion of the self and self-transformation in
early Judaism (= culture) by recognising from the outset that different varieties
(= sub-cultures) of early Jews may (or may not) conceive of the self differently,
even if they do share much in common both with one another and with others
in antiquity. By doing so, we allow for the possibility of different answers to
the same questions even among people who fall under the umbrella of early
Judaism.
The culture we are dealing with is early Judaism. Early Judaism refers roughly to the time period between the second century bce and eighth century
ce. Antiquity tends to refer to the earlier part of this period as antiquity and
late-antiquity to the latter. So it seems safe, since our study examines texts
from this entire stretch in history, to refer to it as early Judaism. With that said,
this broad period divides into smaller sub-cultures, to which we refer as varieties. There is such chronological, geographical and sociocultural diversity in
Judaism from this period that if we are to understand the self and self-transformation among early Jews, it is imperative that this broad construct be divided
into smaller, nuanced parts.
2.2.2
Component 2: The Self as Bounded Space
The self is only the self in relation to some other. Albeit with a tinge of sarcasm,
Frederick Perls says it best:
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[M]any…like to write the self with a capital S, as if the self would be
something precious, something extraordinarily valuable. They go at the
discovery of the self like a treasure-digging. The self means nothing but
this thing as it is defined by otherness. ‘I do it myself’ means that nobody
else is doing it, it is this organism that does it.18
The self is a bounded entity. Its boundaries, which can take any shape or form,
distinguish it from others, or the other. In some cases, these boundaries are
rigid, hard, impenetrable to outside forces. In these instances, the self is clearly
demarcated over against the other. In other cases, they are softer and constantly in flux. In such instances, the self and its space are in perpetual negotiation
with the other.19 The hard or soft nature of the self’s boundaries forms a significant part of our examination below.20
Boundaries play an important role in the construction and transformation
of the self. The self receives shape by its boundaries. So when its boundaries
change, it changes. Its space takes on a different shape, and its relationship to
the other, to its context, to the world around it, changes as well.21
As a bounded entity, the self is a type of space.22 The spatiality of the self
seems self-evident, since something that has boundaries naturally takes up
space. Not only does the self take up space and act within or upon that space,
18
19
20
21
22
Frederick S. Perls, Gestalt Therapy Verbatim, ed. John O. Stevens (New York: Bantam Books,
1971), 8.
Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice, trans. Richard Nice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977). Shulman and Stroumsa (‘Introduction’, in Self and SelfTransformation [ed. Idem], 5) observe that some cultures hold a ‘remarkably elastic sense
of self…and a vision of osmotic boundaries within “it” or between this fluid innerness and
other, especially tentatively external, realities’.
The notion of hardness or softness—or as we shall discuss them in the chapters that
follow, centripetality or centrifugality—is important in this regard. This is illustrated in
a statement made by Wendy Doniger (‘Transformations of Subjectivity and Memory in
the Mahābhārata and the Rāmāyaṇa’, in Self and Self-Transformation [ed. Shulman and
Stroumsa], 70) concerning Hindu conceptions of the self. She writes, ‘The Hindu boundaries of identity are fluid; acts of eating and sex further blur those boundaries by transgressing the limits of the human body’.
On the relational nature of the self, see the helpful essay by Harold Oliver, ‘The Relational
Self’, in Selves, People, and Persons: What Does It Mean to Be a Self?, ed. Leroy S. Rouner
(Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992), 37–52.
Michael G.F. Martin, ‘Bodily Awareness: A Sense of Ownership’ in The Body and
the Self, ed. José Luis Bermúdez, Anthony Marcel and Naomi Eilan (Cambridge, Mass.:
The mit Press, 1995), 280. See also Shulman and Stroumsa, ‘Introduction’, in Self and SelfTransformation, 12–13.
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but it is also a bounded space of its own.23 As a bounded space, it manages and
maintains itself in a number of ways. It protects itself from invading influences,
closing its borders or orifices to keep bad and destructive things out. It opens
itself to beneficial influences, allowing them inside so as to derive benefit from
them. Sometimes it even crosses over into other space, sharing in or taking over
that space.24 When boundaries face change and space undergoes a shift, either
positively or negatively, the self enters a phase of self-transformation.25
Physical boundaries are the clearest form of boundaries or bounded space
in any context. In a city, for example, boundaries take the form of walls and
gates.26 These demarcate one city’s physical space over against outside space.
They also establish social divisions between each group within the city or inside that bounded space. Likewise, in the human self, the clearest boundaries
take the form of the body and its orifices. Self space is invariably linked to body
space. I am me because, in part, my body inhabits a particular space that no one
else inhabits but which others recognise as my space. It is no wonder, because
the self is such a difficult thing to conceptualise, that its study has largely come
through the examination of the body.27 The body gives this otherwise ethereal
thing visibility, touchability. It establishes physical parameters—a framework
of sorts—by which we can make our way in to studying the self more broadly.
Komjathy simplifies the matter when he states that ‘the study of the self is
also the study of the body’.28 Michel Foucault expresses this as well when he
23
24
25
26
27
28
On the body and space in antiquity, see Nancy Worman, ‘Bodies and Topographies in Ancient Stylistic Theory’, in Bodies and Boundaries in Graeco-Roman Antiquity, ed. Thorsten
Fögen and Mireille M. Lee (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2009), 45–62.
See Christian Smith, What Is a Person? Rethinking Humanity, Social Life, and the Moral
Good from the Person Up (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2010), 333, 343.
See Wai-Yee Li, ‘On Becoming a Fish: Paradoxes of Immortality and Enlightenment in
Chinese Literature’, in Self and Self-Transformation (ed. Shulman and Stroumsa), 29. Here
Wai-Yee Li explains that in the tale of Zhuangzi and Huizi, boundaries are conceived as
‘fluid’, and as such it is possible in this tradition ‘to overcome division of self and other’.
Thus to roam, wander or play is ‘to overcome boundaries, to move from one state of being
to another, to achieve self-transformation’.
On the body and the city, see esp. Andrew Hopkins and Maria Wyke, Roman Bodies: Antiquity to the Eighteenth Century (London: British School at Rome, 2005).
See Gloria Ferrari, ‘Introduction’, in Bodies and Boundaries in Graeco-Roman Antiquity (ed.
Fögen and Lee), 1–9.
Komjathy, Cultivating Perfection, 65. He adds that the body is not ‘as counter-intuitive as it
may be, simply an invariable, cross-cultural entity. Although some take the body as a biological given, or assume that this self sitting here is the same kind of self that undertook
ascetic discipline and alchemical transformation in the twelfth century, careful analysis
reveals something else’ (Ibid.).
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famously quips that ‘the soul is the prison of the body’.29 Or as Peter Brown
observes, the conception of the body as of equal importance in the overall conception of the self, or of selfhood, was pervasive in late antiquity.30 As such, the
way one treats the body testifies not just to the value of the soul, but to that
person’s self-conception more broadly. The body is a perfect stage on which to
observe and analyse self-construction and self-transformation. How a person
treats the body, those ‘techniques’ or ‘technologies’ used to control, discipline
and reward the body, make manifest what a person or society believes about
the invisible aspects of the self.31
Mary Douglas has been influential in how we understand the body/self in
relation to society.32 For Douglas, the body is an analogue of society: both have
boundaries and structure, and the way an individual or a society treats these
reveals who or what they conceive themselves to be. As she states:
The body is a model which can stand for any bounded system. Its boundaries can represent any boundaries which are threatened or precarious.
The body is a complex structure. The functions of its different parts and
their relation afford a source of symbols for other complex structures.
We cannot possibly interpret rituals concerning excreta, breast milk,
saliva and the rest unless we are prepared to see in the body a symbol of
society, and to see the powers and dangers credited to social structure
reproduced in small on the human body.33
That the body is a microcosm of society is almost a universal maxim.34 It is
vital to protect oneself or one’s society from pollution, which is simply the
29
30
31
32
33
34
Michel Foucault Discipline and Punish. The Birth of the Prison, trans. Alan Sheridan
(New York: Vintage Books, 1979), 29. See also Idem, History of Sexuality, Volume 1: An Introduction, trans. Robert Hurley (New York: Pantheon Books, 1978), 145–55; Idem, History of
Sexuality, Volume 2: The Use of Pleasure, trans. Robert Hurley (New York: Pantheon Books,
1985), 95–139; Idem, History of Sexuality, Volume 3: The Care of the Self, trans. Robert Hurley (New York: Pantheon Books, 1986), 97–144; Idem, Herculine Barbin. Being the Recently
Discovered Memoirs of a Nineteenth-Century French Hermaphrodite, trans. Richard
McDougall (New York: Pantheon Books, 1980).
Peter Brown, The Body and Society: Men, Women and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988), 26–27.
Mauss, ‘Les techniques du corps’ (1935), 363–86.
Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (London:
Routledge, 2001 [1966]), 116.
Douglas, Purity and Danger, 116.
As Komjathy (Cultivating Perfection, 66) writes: ‘The human body is simultaneously cultural construct, historical artifact, experiencing agent, and, for some, soteriological locus’.
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negative alteration or destruction of one’s bounded space.35 Self protection, or
the defense of one’s bounded space, lies behind many rituals. One eats a certain way and only with certain people to construct and maintain the self over
against the other and its harmful pollutions. The individual must therefore
protect against pollution and impurity not just to maintain the boundaries between oneself and another individual.36 Rather, in certain societies, individual
boundaries are directly related to the boundaries and thus the well-being of
society. Since the individual represents the collective, when a single person allows impurity into one’s self, he or she actually allows impurity into the whole
system.37 Not only does the individual’s bounded space shift. That of his or her
society does as well.
The self as a bounded space is particularly intriguing when viewed in
relation to the divine or sacred. The maintenance of boundaries, or staying
within and upholding the integrity of one’s own space, becomes precarious
when the self is up against God or his space. As Douglas writes, ‘[R]elations
with the sacred are always expressed through rituals of separation and demarcation, and are reinforced with beliefs in the danger of crossing forbidden boundaries’.38 The boundaries of the self are conceived horizontally, or in
relation to one’s neighbours, and vertically, or in relation to the divine. There
is a heightened sense of apprehension when the maintenance of one’s own
self runs the risk of treading on God or his ‘forbidden’ space.39 When one’s
bounded space overlaps with God’s space, destruction or transformation—
either a negative or positive change in the nature or shape of one’s space—are
inevitable.
35
36
37
38
39
As opposed to transformation, or the positive alteration of one’s bounded space.
See also Mary Douglas, Implicit Meanings: Selected Essays in Anthropology, 2d ed.
(London: Routledge, 1999), xiv, where Douglas writes: ‘The sacred is constructed by the
efforts of individuals to live together in society and to bind themselves to their agreed
rules. It is characterised by the dangers alleged to follow upon breach of the rules. Belief
in these dangers acts as a deterrent. It defends society in its work of self-creation and
self-maintenance. Because of the dangers attributed to breach of the rules, the sacred is
treated as if it were contagious and can be recognised by the insulating behaviour of its
devotees’.
One might compare Foucault’s discussion of the self in relation to others in the household in History of Sexuality, Volume 2, 143–84 and History of Sexuality, Volume 3, 147–85.
Douglas, Implicit Meanings, 107.
See Fritz Stolz, ‘Dimensions and Transformations of Purity Ideas’, in Transformation of the
Inner Self (ed. Assmann and Stroumsa), 211.
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2.2.3
Component 3: The Self as Technologically Advanced
When self-transformation occurs, one finds that it is ‘never chaotic, random,
or unstructured’ but instead ‘regularly patterned’.40 A culture establishes consistent ritual practices by which the self brings about transformation. Foucault
offers a helpful assessment of this phenomenon. He insists that the self is
intrinsically transformative. It is always shifting, changing, being transformed.
For most people, on some level, the goal is to direct this change in a positive direction, so that one continually becomes better than he or she is at the present
time. In every context, one has at his or her disposal a set of established practices that a given culture views as useful in the pursuit of self-transformation.
Foucault refers to these in terms of ‘technologies of the self’. As he states:
[Technologies of the self] permit individuals to effect by their own means
or with the help of others a certain number of operations on their own
bodies and souls, thoughts, conduct, and way of being, so as to transform
themselves in order to attain a certain state of happiness, purity, wisdom,
perfection, or immortality.41
Elsewhere he describes these technologies as
those reflective and voluntary practices by which men not only set themselves rules of conduct, but seek to transform themselves, to change
themselves in their singular being, and to make their life into an oeuvre
that carries certain aesthetic values and meets certain stylistic criteria.42
Through a variety of technologies, one can create, recreate and transform himor herself and attain some ideal state.43 One can use anything as a technology
of self-transformation. But this is always determined by the culture in which
40
41
42
43
Shulman and Stroumsa, ‘Introduction’, in Self and Self-Transformation (ed. Idem), 4;
cf. Komjathy, Cultivating Perfection, 65–66.
Michel Foucault, ‘Technologies of the Self’, in Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with
Michel Foucault, ed. Luther H. Martin, Huck Gutman and Patrick H. Hutton (London:
Tavistock Publicaions, 1988), 18, but see 16–49 for his fuller argument.
Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, Volume 2: The Use of Pleasure, 10–11.
Again, elsewhere Michel Foucault (‘An Interview by Stephen Riggins’, in Ethics, Subjectivity and Truth. Essential Works of Michel Foucault 1954–1984, Volume 1, ed. Paul Rabinow
[New York: The New Press, 1997], 131) writes: ‘You see, that’s why I really work like a dog,
and I worked like a dog all my life. I am not interested in the academic status of what I am
doing, because my problem is my own transformation…This transformation of oneself by
one’s own knowledge is, I think, something rather close to an aesthetic experience’.
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it is found.44 The technologies of the self in early Judaism are not random or
accidental but consistent and ‘regularly patterned’. It will be interesting to see
just what early Jews suggest these are and what they reveal about the self in
early Jewish anthropology.
Furthermore, ontological transformation is not always in view in cases of
self-transformation. Sometimes a person or society uses a technology merely to effect ritualistic change. In these cases, there is no sense in which the
technology necessarily transforms the self on an ontological level. However,
sometimes one uses the same ritual technologies and experiences for just that:
ontological transformation. In early Judaism, this type of change virtually always occurs in juxtaposition to God and his space. The reasoning behind this
is not clear at this point, but we shall examine it below.
2.3
The Mystical Experience
We shall seek to understand the self and self-transformation by looking at accounts of the mystical experience. I am aware that designations such as ‘mysticism’ and ‘mystical’ can have different connotations when applied to different
cultures and in different fields of study. However, for the purposes of my own
investigation I shall avoid what is clearly, according to the vast amount of literature on the subject, the more problematic term ‘mysticism’ and speak more
specifically of the ‘mystical experience’. For as Jess Byron Hollenback rightly
notes, the term mysticism incorporates both the mystical experience itself,
whatever this might look like in a given text or tradition, and the response to
the experience of those involved.45 Based on various discussions by scholars
in the field of Jewish studies and in the light of those in the fields of religious
studies and phenomenology, I tend to understand the mystical experience,
in early Judaism, as an experience in which a human, in the present life, engages in ritual activities that bring him or her into direct contact with God
or his space.46 What demarcates the mystical experience from other types of
44
45
46
Cf. Charles E. Larmore, The Practices of the Self (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
2010).
Jess Byron Hollenback, Mysticism: Experience, Response, and Empowerment (University
Park, Pa.: University of Pennsylvania State, 1996), 1.
See the helpful discussion in Philip S. Alexander, The Mystical Texts: Songs of the Sabbath
Sacrifice and Related Documents (London: T & T Clark, 2006), 7–10; Moshe Idel, Enchanted Chains: Techniques and Rituals in Jewish Mysticism (Los Angeles: Cherub Press, 2005);
Idem, Kabbalah, 74–111. See also April D. DeConick, ‘What Is Early Jewish and Christian
Mysticism?’, in Paradise Now: Essays on Early Jewish and Christian Mysticism, ed. eadem
(Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2006), 1–3. On p. 2, DeConick writes: ‘In etic terms,
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15
experiences, particularly in monotheistic cultures like Judaism, is proximity
to God. Only when the account under investigation asserts that the human
self encounters God directly, in the present life, can the experience be called
mystical. As I discuss shortly below, these experiences will shed critical light
on early Jewish beliefs about the human self and its potential for and relation
to the transcendent.
One caveat must be addressed at this point. My point in speaking in terms
of the mystical experience is not to make a claim about or take a stance in
regard to the reality of such an experience. This is not my concern. Rather,
my point is that, as a large body of research in the field of Jewish studies now
agrees, many early Jews believed that humans could experience God in various
degrees of proximity. In light of this situation, the general consensus among
scholars is that accounts in which early Jews reveal a belief about themselves
or someone else as encountering God directly are best understood in terms of
the mystical experience.
2.3.1
Mystical Experience and Self-transformation
My interest does not end in the mystical experience. Rather, it focuses on
mystical experiences that involve self-transformation. Self-transformation
can take any number of forms. It can include a change in status, such as exaltation to a throne in heaven.47 It can include a change in gender, such as
when a woman becomes a man or vice versa.48 It can include deification,
or the process in which a human becomes a god or godlike on some level.49
47
48
49
it [mysticism] identifies a tradition within early Judaism and Christianity centered on the
belief that a person directly, immediately, and before death can experience the divine, either
as a rapture experience or as one solitcited by a particular praxis. This definition, although
framed in etic terms, remains sensitive to the fact that the early Jews and Christians
neither distinguished between unsolicited rapture and solicited invasion experiences—
all were “apocalypses”—nor described their experiences in terms of the unio mystica so
central to later Christian mysticism’.
See the various accounts of exaltation in early Jewish apocalyptic and mystical literature
in the following chapters.
See e.g. Giovanni Filoramo, ‘The Transformation of the Inner Self in Gnostic and Hermetic Texts’, in Transformations of the Inner Self (ed. Assmann and Stroumsa), 142, 148.
See also Kathrin Schade, ‘The Female Body in Late Antiquity: Between Virtue, Taboo
and Eroticism’, in Bodies and Boundaries in Graeco-Roman Antiquity (ed. Fögen and Lee),
215–36.
We shall discuss transformations described in terms of deification, divinisation,
theosis and the like throughout the followings chapters. For more on this, see esp. Ben
C. Blackwell, Christosis: Pauline Soteriology in Light of Deification in Irenaeus and Cyril of
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It can even include a type of death, where the self dies before entering its
transformed state.50 In the light of this diverseness, Shulman and Stroumsa
offer a helpful caution. ‘Personal transformation’, they insist, ‘need not go as far
as turning oneself into a god, or devolving oneself into a demon or an animal,
or even switching gender. It may mean, at root, a substantial reorganization or
restructuring of the self—in some sense, the same self that forms the point of
departure’.51 We will be looking at the self in terms of a culturally specific, spatially bounded and technologically advanced entity. This will enable us to see
the way each variety of early Jews understands the self to undergo ontological
transformation, reorganisation and/or restructuring of various types in God’s
presence.
2.3.2
The Ontological Malleability of the Self
This study is an inquiry into early Jewish beliefs and assumptions about the ontological malleability of the self. It looks not at accounts of self-transformation
in general but at accounts of ontological transformation in particular.52 I am
aware that ontology and ontological are terms being used in various ways by
scholars of different fields. So let me be clear about how I am using these in
50
51
52
Alexandria (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011); M. David Litwa, We Are Being Transformed:
Deification in Paul’s Soteriology (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2012); Idem, Becoming Divine:
An Introduction to Deification in Western Culture (Eugene, Or.: Cascade Books, 2013);
Michael J. Gorman, Cruciformity: Paul’s Narrative Spirituality of the Cross (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 2001); Idem, Inhabiting the Cruciform God: Kenosis, Justification, and Theosis
in Paul’s Narrative Soteriology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009); Norman Russell, The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006);
Volker Rabens, ‘The Holy Spirit and Deification in Paul: A “Western” Perspective’, in The
Holy Spirit and the Church according to the New Testament: Sixth International East-West
Symposium of New Testament Scholars, Belgrade, August 25 to 31, 2013, ed. Predrag Dragutinovic, Karl-Wilhelm Niebuhr and James Buchanan Wallace, with Christos Karakolis
(Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016), 187–220.
See the fascinating essay by Serge Ruzer, ‘The Death Motif in Late Antique Teshuva
Narrative Patterns. With a Note on Romans 5–8’, in Transformations of the Inner Self
(ed. Assmann and Stroumsa), 152–65.
Shulman and Stroumsa, ‘Introduction’, in Self and Self-Transformation (ed. Idem), 12–13.
For a proper, philosophical definition and discussion of ontology, see Roberto Poli,
‘Descriptive, Formal and Formalized Ontologies’, in Husserl’s Logical Investigations Reconsidered, ed. Denis Fisette (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2003), 193–94. Cf. Liliana Albertazzi, ‘Formal and Material Ontology’, in Formal Ontology, ed. Roberto Poli and Peter M. Simons
(Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1996), 199–232; Dale Jacquette, Ontology (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s
University, 2002), 240–43.
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this book. When I refer to ontological aspects of early Jewish anthropology, and
thus when I use the terms ontological and anthropology in the same context, I
am not engaging with the burgeoning field of ‘ontological anthropology’.53 Nor
am I interested in early Jewish views on the reality (ontology) of the human
person or humanity (anthropology). Thus I am not interested in early Jewish
beliefs about whether or not humans actually exist or what they believe about
the reality of existence or other philosophical debates.
My interest, rather, is in early Jewish beliefs and assumptions about the ontology of the self in God’s presence as understood through exegesis of their
writings. In other words, I am interested in early Jewish conceptions of the state,
nature, essence, condition, composition, constitution, construction, organisation, make-up or stuff of which the human self is made or composed, and
specifically how this (ontological) aspect of the self reacts in God’s presence.
Or to phrase it differently, my interest is in how the ontology of the human
being, understood in this way, reacts when in the presence of God. Moreover,
when I state that I am interested in ontological aspects of early Jewish anthropology, I mean simply that I am interested in these aspects of the human self
rather than, for example, of the Holy Spirit, as are many scholars of early Christianity.54 While I use the two terms, ontology and anthropology, in the same
context, I thus never pair them together to indicate my interest in the field of
‘ontological anthropology’.
In looking for what I call ontological transformation, therefore, the sort of
self-transformation in which I am interested involves a change in the ontology
or ontological aspect of the human self—that is, as already noted, the state,
nature, essence, condition, composition, constitution, construction, organisation, make-up or stuff of the self. To state this another way, I am interested
in early Jewish accounts which assert that the bounded space of the self undergoes ontological transformation when something positive happens to it, by
means of prescribed ritual technologies and either before, during or after making contact with God or his space. What a particular transformation looks like
varies from one variety of Judaism to the next.
53
54
On the so-called ‘ontological turn’ in the field of anthropology, see e.g. the work of Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, Marshall Sahlins and Bruno Latour.
See e.g. Volker Rabens, The Holy Spirit and Ethics in Paul: Transformation and Empowering for Religious-Ethical Life, 2nd rev. ed. (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013 [2010]); Troels
Engberg-Pedersen, Cosmology and Self in the Apostle Paul: The Material Spirit (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2010).
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2.4
The Mystical Text
Since a mystical text is a literary record or discussion of a mystical experience,
the same criteria that make an experience mystical also make a text mystical.55
2.4.1
What Makes a Mystical Text ‘Mystical’?
Three criteria are necessary for a text to be classified as mystical. First, the
text must refer to or describe a human who directly contacts God, his space or
the divine more broadly conceived. The so-called divine can extend to angels
or other heavenly beings or even to sacred texts, but only when there is reason to think that contact with those texts is equivalent to contact with God.
Second, there must be evidence that the human is actively seeking to contact
God. When rapture occurs, the human must have sought, or must be in the
process of seeking, to contact God using ritual practices prior to the event.
Third, contact with God must occur in the present aeon or life. An event
in which righteous humans now live in the future state falls into a different
category of transformation. Certainly early Jewish tradition does not preclude
the belief that some humans can enjoy a foretaste of the future life even now.
But the fulness of that future life is not the subject of the present study, and
accounts of it are not to be considered mystical. They refer to eschatological experience, or even resurrection experience, but not to the mystical experience.
2.4.2
The Value of the Mystical Text
The mystical text provides valuable insight both into an individual’s and a
culture’s conceptions of the self. Not only does it illuminate a culture’s conception of God, at least in cultures such as the one we are referring to as early
Judaism, but it also sheds light on cultural assumptions about humans in relation to their deity or deities. My approach to mystical texts in investigating
assumptions and beliefs about the self is akin to the way anthropologists approach food in investigating similar matters. In each case, the subjects under
investigation may not always be aware of the anthropological assumptions
that drive their actions and rituals. Douglas refers to this as the question
of ‘consciousness’.56 She insists that this question is present ‘whenever a
correspondence is found between a given social structure and the structure
55
56
See also Carl A. Keller, ‘Mystical Literature’, in Mysticism and Philosophical Analysis, ed.
Steven T. Katz (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978), 75–100.
Douglas, Implicit Meanings, 237. See also Caroline Walker Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy
Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), 5.
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of symbols by which it is expressed’.57 She notes that ‘only a small part of
the meaning’ of a given social situation, such as a meal, is observable on the
surface.58 She then adds, ‘It would be simplistic to trace the food categories
directly to the social categories they embrace and leave it’.59
This is important for us in that we must look at the words and activities that are observable in the mystical texts but then investigate the assumptions of the Jewish writers behind them. In other words, even though
we shall treat a variety of different texts—texts from different languages
and historical situations and representing different genres of Jewish writings—we must keep in mind that we are investigating different writings
which are nevertheless linked by their mystical nature. Our task is rather
similar to the anthropologist’s task of investigating sometimes vastly different cultures with an eye towards the same theme of eating or food, for
example. While in the following investigation we must exegete a variety
of texts according to each of their peculiarities, we must recognise that
these texts are widely agreed by scholars of early Judaism as being mystical
in nature. As such, they will be instrumental in helping us to understand
the deeper beliefs and assumptions of early Jews with regard to God and
humanity and the ontological relationship between the two. For as Hollenback
observes, by studying mystical texts one gains deep insight into the philosophical, theological and anthropological matters and ideas that the culture
in which the texts are produced views as having central importance—in the
case of this book, matters and ideas concerning ontological aspects of the
human self that early Jews hold as centrally important.60
This brief discussion is of direct relevance to a study interested in early
Jewish assumptions and beliefs about ontological aspects of the self. When
we look at early Jewish texts which describe the human self as contacting
the divine and undergoing ontological change, we can see what those behind
the text assume about the self. We can gain insight into what they assume or
believe about the way the self is made and what it has the potential to become
in God’s presence under the right circumstances.
57
58
59
60
Douglas, Implicit Meanings, 236–37.
Ibid., 237.
Ibid.
Hollenback, Mysticism, 33–134; cf. Wayne Proudfoot, Religious Experience (Berkeley: University of California, 1985), 123; F. Samuel Brainard, ‘Defining Mystical Experience’, Journal
for the American Academy of Religion 64 (1996): 364.
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The Status Quaestionis
3.1
Scholarly Interest in Self-transformation
Global interest in the self in early Judaism has flourished for some time.
Building on the work of Marcel Mauss, Michel Foucault, Mary Douglas, Pierre
Bourdieu and others, recent scholars in the History of Religions have shown
that cultures around the world consistently view the self as a flawed entity in
need of change, as we saw above in the work of Shulman and Stroumsa. Within this multidisciplinary framework, scholars have examined the self and its
malleable nature in Daoism,61 medieval Indian alchemy,62 Sasanian Zoroastrianism,63 medieval Christianity64 and Graeco-Roman antiquity.65 And Pauline
scholarship has long been interested in such matters in Paul’s thought, though
it too has seen a renewed interest in these ideas in recent years.66 Recent
conference activity further attests to the awareness of the need for further
research into the self specifically in Judaism.67
3.2
Jewish Mysticism and Self-transformation
More specifically, important scholarship has been put forth dealing with
the self and its potential for transformation in early Judaism and ancient
Christianity. Indeed, the 1990s saw a shift of attention towards the idea of
transformation in early Judaism.68
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
Komjathy, Cultivating Perfection.
David Gordon White, The Alchemical Body: Siddha Traditions in Medieval India (Chicago:
The University of Chicago Press, 1996).
Shaked, Dualism in Transformation.
Bernard McGinn, John Meyendorff and Jean Leclercq, ed., Christian Spirituality: Origins to
the Twelfth Century (New York: Crossroad, 1985); Caroline Walker Bynum, The Resurrection
of the Body in Western Christianity, 200–1336 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995).
Remes and Sihvola, ed., Ancient Philosophy of the Self.
For dialogue with nineteenth- to twenty-first-century scholarship on such matters, see
the recent work of Volker Rabens, The Holy Spirit and Ethics in Paul: Transformation and
Empowering for Religious-Ethical Life, 2d rev. ed. (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013 [2010]).
See Maria Diemling and Larry Ray, ed., Boundaries, Identity and Belonging in Modern Judaism (London: Routledge, 2015).
Gershom G. Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, 3d rev. ed. (New York: Schocken Books, 1965 [1941]), 51–52, 70–71; Elliot R. Wolfson, Through a Speculum that Shines:
Vision and Imagination in Medieval Jewish Mysticism (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1994), 186; cf. 84–85, 363; Idem, ‘Mysticism and the Poetic-Liturgical Compositions
from Qumran: A Response to Bilhah Nitzan’, Jewish Quarterly Review New Series 85 (1994):
185–202, esp. 186; Schäfer, The Origins of Jewish Mysticism, 20; Morton Smith, ‘Ascent to
the Heavens and Deification in 4QMa’, in Archeology and History in the Dead Sea Scrolls:
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21
3.2.1
Christopher Morray-Jones
In a short article published in 1992, Christopher Morray-Jones brought the
notion of transformation to the forefront of Jewish studies scholarship, publishing an investigation of what he calls ‘transformational mysticism’.69 Transformational mysticism is an expression of mysticism, at the core of which is
the idea that a human can undergo various changes upon encountering the
divine. Morray-Jones insists that this theme is present in Judaeo-Christian
mysticism from an early stage:
There is evidence, then, of the early existence of a tradition concerning
the ascent of an exceptionally righteous man who beholds the vision
of the divine kabod upon the Merkabah, is transformed into an angelic
being and enthroned as celestial vice-regent, thereby becoming identified with the Name-bearing angel who either is or is closely associated
with the kabod itself and functions as a second, intermediary power in
heaven.70
Morray-Jones makes a tremendous contribution to our understanding of the
link between human transformation and mystical experience. Our work is
no doubt indebted to his erudite exploration of transformation in early Judaism. Nevertheless, whereas he focuses primarily on the transformation as it
is presented in the texts themselves, my study will pay closer attention to the
69
70
The New York University Conference in Memory of Yigael Yadin, ed. Lawrence H. Schiffman
and Yigael Yadin (Sheffield: Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Press, 1990), 181–88;
Idem, ‘Two Ascended to Heaven: Jesus and the Author of 4Q491’, in Jesus and the Dead Sea
Scrolls, ed. James H. Charlesworth (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 290–301; John J. Collins, ‘A
Throne in the Heavens: Apotheosis in Pre-Christian Judaism’, in Death, Ecstasy, and Other
Worldly Journeys, ed. John J. Collins and Michael Fishbane (Albany: State University of New
York Press, 1995), 43–58; Alan F. Segal, ‘Paul and the Beginning of Jewish Mysticism’, in Other
Worldly Journeys (ed. Collins and Fishbane), 101–03; Robin Griffith-Jones, ‘Transformation
by a Text: The Gospel of John’, in Experientia, Volume 1: Inquiry into Religious Experience in
Early Judaism and Christianity, ed. Frances Flannery, Colleen Shantz and Rodney A. Werline
(Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2008), 85–124; Celia Deutsch, ‘The Therapeutae, Text
Work, Ritual, and Mystical Experience’, in Paradise Now (ed. DeConick), 287–312; eadem,
‘Visions, Mysteries, and the Interpretative Task: Text Work and Religious Experience in
Philo and Clement’, in Experientia, Volume 1 (ed. Flannery, Shantz and Werline), 83–104.
Christopher R.A. Morray-Jones, ‘Transformational Mysticism in the ApocalypticMerkabah Tradition’, Journal of Jewish Studies 43 (1992): 1–31; cf. Gilles Quispel, ‘Transformation Through Vision in Jewish Gnosticism and the Cologne Mani Codex’, vc 49 (1995):
189–91.
Morray-Jones, ‘Transformational Mysticism’, 10–11.
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assumptions underlying them, using theoretical insights to learn more about
these assumptions.
3.2.2
Martha Himmelfarb
Around the same time as Morray-Jones, Martha Himmelfarb was likewise
exploring the same ideas, only in fuller book form. Her Ascent to Heaven is
indeed an irreplaceable treatment of mystical transformation in the ascent
apocalypses.71 Like Morray-Jones, Himmelfarb positions transformation near
the centre of early Jewish apocalypticism.
In her impressive and ground-breaking study, Himmelfarb makes three
observations that are vital to my own exploration. First, she discusses what
she conceives to be the ‘meaning of transformation’ in this literature.72 Some
accounts communicate beliefs about how close humans can be or become to
God. Enochic traditions exemplify this strand of thought most clearly. They
purport that in order for humans to enter God’s immediate presence successfully and safely they must undergo radical ontological change.73 In nonEnochic literature, self-transformation generally appears to ‘anticipate’ that
which the righteous will experience in the world to come.74 When the heroes
of these works ascend to heaven and become angels, they are depicted as
having taken possession of that ontological state which awaits the righteous
after death.75 Her suggestion rests on the idea that according to this literature the boundaries between human and divine are at times ‘not very clear’.76
This ambivalence leaves open the possibility for humans to undergo profound
ontological changes and to become, for example, ‘the equals of angels’.77
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
Martha Himmelfarb, Ascent to Heaven in Jewish and Christian Apocalypses (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1993).
Ibid., 69–71.
Ibid., 70–71.
Ibid., 51. Cf. Wilhelm Bousset, ‘Die Himmelsreise der Seele’, Archiv für Religionswissenschaft 4 (1901): 136–69, 229–73.
Himmelfarb, Ascent to Heaven, 51–56. In both Apoc. Zeph. and Ascen. Isa., the heroes
are given priestly-angelic garments, indicating their becoming equal to the angels
(e.g. Apoc. Zeph. 2; Ascen. Isa. 8–9). Heavenly prayer and liturgy are also prominent
in these accounts. Zephaniah comes to understand the angels and prays with them
(Apoc. Zeph. 3.3–4). Isaiah, in the seventh heaven, joins with the angels and worships
Christ (Ascen. Isa. 9.30–31). The Apoc. Abr., which does not contain an explicit transformation as do the apocalypses above, does indicate that participation in angelic worship
marks the visionary’s ‘achievement of angelic status’ (Ibid., 61). Such activity, Himmelfarb
maintains, indicates their changed status in heaven (cf. Ibid., 70).
Ibid., 70.
Ibid., 4, cf. 29–46, 47–71.
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There are established boundaries between human and divine. But these
boundaries are in fact quite dissolvable.78
Second, Himmelfarb’s book raises the question, what can humans actually
become? Her treatment of Enoch is a good example of why this question is important. In 2 En. 22.10 Enoch finds himself gloriously transformed. According
to Enochic tradition, Enoch has, in Himmelfarb’s words, ‘become an angel’.79
However, according to Enoch he does not become one of them but instead like
them, such that ‘there was no observable difference’ between himself and the
‘glorious ones’ around him.80 It must therefore be asked, in what sense can or
do humans become or become like those in heaven?
Third, Himmelfarb asks what the literature reveals about early Jewish
beliefs about the self. She suggests that the ‘examples of the heroes of the
ascent apocalypses teach their readers to live the life of this world with the
awareness of the possibility of transcendence’.81 She asserts later that these
apocalypses ‘suggest an understanding of human possibility’.82 Mystical and
apocalyptic literature, in other words, are fundamentally driven by assumptions about the self, and in particular about its intrinsic potentiality. Himmelfarb rightly insists that apocalyptic texts shed light on conceptions of the
human self and its potential for transformation. This issue will form a key
piece of my examination in the following chapters.
3.2.3
Andrei Orlov
Andrei Orlov has recently examined the motif of mimesis in early Jewish
mysticism. He explores this motif in two works known to us only in Slavonic,
namely, Apoc. Abr. and 2 En. He demonstrates that in early Jewish mysticism
and apocalypticism there is an awareness of the symmetry between demons
on the one hand and angels and God on the other.83 The former can take on
the features, attributes and conditions of the latter. Thus during the Yom Kippur ceremony, the angelic High Priest Yahoel is pitted against the demonic
scapegoat Azazel. The two beings inversely mirror one another, for example,
78
79
80
81
82
83
See also Guy G. Stroumsa, ‘Madness and Divinization in Early Christian Monasticism’, in
Self and Self-Transformation (ed. Shulman and Stroumsa), 79.
Himmelfarb, Ascent to Heaven, 40.
2 En. 22.10. English translations of 2 Enoch are those of F.I. Andersen, ‘2 (Slavonic Apocalypse of) Enoch’, in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, Volume 1: Apocalyptic Literature
and Testaments, ed. James H. Charlesworth (New York: Doubleday, 1983), 91–221.
Himmelfarb, Ascent to Heaven, 71.
Ibid., 113–14.
Andrei Orlov, Dark Mirrors: Azazel and Satanael in Early Jewish Demonology (Albany:
State University of New York Press, 2011); Idem, Divine Scapegoats: Demonic Mimesis in
Early Jewish Mysticism (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2015).
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where Yahoel bears the divine name, while his demonic counterpart, Azazel,
bears the cultic curses.84 Likewise, the patriarch Abraham derives life-giving
sustenance from the presence of Yahoel, while Adam and Eve derive detrimental nourishment from Azazel.85 And again, in Apoc. Abr. Azazel receives the
garment of sins from Yahoel in heaven,86 while in 2 En. Enoch takes on angelic
likeness during his journey to heaven.87
In his fascinating treatment of mimesis in these early mystical-apocalyptic
works, Orlov exposes perhaps the fundamental concept underlying such ideas,
which is summarised in the phrase ‘on earth as in heaven’.88 The earthly and
the heavenly have, in other words, long been conceived as corresponding to
one another. But Orlov demonstrates that there is a correspondence between
heaven and the demonic world as well. What is more, he establishes that there
is a long-standing assumption that mimesis of the heavenly world is not only
possible but is in fact a well-developed idea from early on.89 Non-angelic beings are assumed to have the potential to imitate or become like divine beings
and participate in the divine existence. Whereas Orlov focuses on the demonic
mimesis of the angels and God, I focus on the human mimesis of the angels
and God, investigating the mimetic nature of the transformation that humans
undergo when in contact with God.
3.2.4
Emmanuel Rehfeld
Emmanuel Rehfeld offers a fresh examination of what it means to be ‘in Christ’
in Paul. He focuses on Paul’s ideas on the effects that relationships have on
one’s ontological state, arguing that according to Paul relationships influence
human existence.90 They possess what Rehfeld refers to as ‘ontic effectiveness’
(die ontische Wirksamkeit). The key to the transformative power of relationships is intimacy. When two beings are united, or engaged in a most extreme
form of intimacy, ontological transformation occurs. A person’s ontological
state therefore comes to resemble that to which he or she is united. Someone
who is not in Christ possesses a fleshy ontological state, but by taking part in
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
Orlov, Divine Scapegoats, 9–36; cf. Idem, Dark Mirrors, 27–46.
Orlov, Divine Scapegoats, 75–102.
Ibid., 46.
Ibid., 152–67.
Ibid., 1; Idem, Dark Mirrors, 3, cf. 11–26.
See Orlov, Divine Scapegoats, 181–88, where he insists that Scholem’s thesis the Kabbalah and later Jewish mysticism is rooted in early mystical speculation contained in early
mystical-apocalyptic works like Apoc. Abr. and 2 En.
Emmanuel L. Rehfeld, Relationale Ontologie bei Paulus: Die ontische Wirksamkeit der
Christusbezogenheit im Denken des Heidenapostels (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012).
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the ‘Christ-relationship’ (Christusbezogenheit) one becomes ontologically like
Christ. Rehfeld’s work is important for its insight into Paul’s thought on the
ontological state of the self. The model he establishes for understanding Paul
can effectively be applied to other varieties of ancient Judaism. Indeed, I suggest that the relationale Ontologie that Rehfeld finds in Paul permeates wider
Jewish thinking of antiquity as well. And it is the notion of relations, contact,
proximity that I suggest has a direct effect on the nature of the ontological
transformation that the self experiences in God’s presence.
3.2.5
Volker Rabens
Like that of Rehfeld, Volker Rabens’ work on Paul has broader implications for
early Jewish anthropology.91 Rabens is interested in the way the Holy Spirit
effects transformation in believers and how this affects their ability to live out
their Christian ethics. He proposes what he calls a ‘relational approach’ to the
Holy Spirit and ethics in Paul.92 Contrary to many scholars, Rabens argues that
there is no evidence that Paul believes the divine spirit to be a material entity
that causes material transformation in believers.93 Believers are able to live according to the new Christian ethic not because they are changed materially but
because, by the Holy Spirit, they experience ontological transformation and
divine empowerment. Transformation and empowerment come from the relationships the believer has with Christ and other believers. As Rabens explains,
‘[I]t is primarily through deeper knowledge of, and an intimate relationship
with, God, Jesus Christ and with the community of faith that people are transformed and empowered by the Spirit for religious-ethical life’.94 Being in close
proximity both to God and to other believers has profound implications on
the believer’s present ontological state of being. The role of relationships or
proximity both to the divine and other humans is critically important to my
study, and Rabens shines fascinating light on this matter However, whereas he is interested in the material or immaterial nature of the Holy Spirit
and how this affects Christian transformation and ethics, my interest is in the
91
92
93
94
Rabens, The Holy Spirit and Ethics in Paul; Idem, ‘Ethics and the Spirit in Paul (1): ReligiousEthical Empowerment through Infusion-Transformation?’, Expository Times 125 (2014):
209–19; Idem, ‘Ethics and the Spirit in Paul (2): Religious-Ethical Empowerment through
the Relational Work of the Spirit’, Expository Times 125 (2014): 272–81; Idem, ‘Pneuma and
the Beholding of God: Reading Paul in the Context of Philonic Mystical Traditions’, in
The Holy Spirit, Inspiration, and the Cultures of Antiquity: Multidisciplinary Perspectives,
ed. Jorg Frey and John R. Levison (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2014), 293–330.
Rabens, The Holy Spirit and Ethics in Paul, 123–242.
Ibid., 146–70.
Ibid., 21.
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ontological state of the self more broadly. If the nature of the Spirit proves an
important component at any point in my exploration, I will then give it proper
attention. But I will not begin here, nor will it be among the primary concerns
of my study.
3.2.6
Crispin Fletcher-Louis
In his exploration of the ‘liturgical anthropology’ of the Dead Sea Scrolls,
Crispin Fletcher-Louis sheds important light on the ontological aspects of
Qumran sectarian anthropology.95 He contends that the sect believed themselves, as God’s true people, to be capable of becoming ‘angelomorphic’ in the
present life. At the right time and under the right circumstances, especially
during communal worship, humans who enter divine space become suprahuman. Fletcher-Louis therefore discovers a pervasive anthropological tendency in Qumran sectarian thought. Under the right circumstances, that is,
certain humans have the potential to experience radical ontological change
into angelic—or angelomorphic—beings, even in the present life. Key to the
transformation that the community experience is the nature of the space in
which they worship. Worship space, for them, becomes divine space, and it is
here where humans, under the right circumstances, become like their celestial counterparts. This aspect of sectarian anthropology, I shall demonstrate, is
present among other Jews as well.96
3.2.7
Michael Schneider
Michael Schneider has recently explored traditions surrounding the High
Priest’s service in the Holy of Holies.97 He examines these with an eye towards
the relationship between what he calls Jewish ‘priestly anthropology’ (הכוהניה
)האנתרופולוגיהand the experience of ‘transformation’ ()טרנספורמציה. Transformation, according to Schneider, takes the form of a priestly ‘apotheosis’
()האפותיאוזה, an experience in which the High Priest becomes the ‘divine
95
96
97
Fletcher-Louis, All the Glory of Adam. But see also Crispin H.T. Fletcher-Louis, Jesus Monotheism: A New Paradigm for the Shape and Origins of the Earliest Christology, Volume 1
(Eugene, Or.: Wipf & Stock, 2015), where Fletcher-Louis will deal with similar matters in
early Christology.
I deal more fully with Fletcher-Louis below in my fourth chapter (§1.1).
Michael Schneider, The Appearance of the High Priest—Theophany, Apotheosis and
Binitarian Theology: From Priestly Tradition of the Second Temple Period through Ancient
Jewish Mysticism (Los Angeles: Cherub Press, 2012), in Hebrew; Idem, Scattered Traditions of Jewish Mysticism: Studies in Ancient Jewish Mysticism in Light of Traditions from
the Apocrypha, the Pseudepigrapha Hellenistic Literature, Christian and Islamic Sources
(Los Angeles: Cherub Press, 2012), in Hebrew.
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hypostasis’ ()היפוסטזה אלוהית. Building on the work of Fletcher-Louis and
others, Schneider likewise contends that proximity to the divine (i.e. space)
as well as participation in the priestly service more broadly lead to the High
Priest’s transformation. Change therefore occurs over the course of the priestly
service before God, not just when the High Priest enters God’s space. What
Schneider suggests, while focused primarily on a single Jewish line of tradition,
has application to other areas, as I show in the following chapters. Specifically
important for my study is his understanding of the transformative power of
engaging in practices that lead one into God’s space and then what, in his interpretation, early Jews believe to happen to the self when contact with God
is made.98
3.3
Moving Forward
Among the many insights that have emerged from scholarly inquiry into the
self and self-transformation, four are foundational for my study. First, ontology is a central element in early Jewish anthropology. Jews of antiquity are not
merely interested in human behaviour, rituals, traditions or other elements by
which humans construct or define the self and delineate it from other selves,
or the other. But they are fascinated with ontological aspects of the human
creature. Both social and ontological conceptions of the self are inherent in
many texts in which a human engages in ritual activities in an effort to elicit
contact with the divine. As shall be shown below, the two are not unrelated.
Early Jews are intrigued by questions about what the self is in its natural state
and what it can potentially become—or change into—in God’s presence.
Second, scholarship has established that ideas on the malleability of the self
pervade Jewish mystical writings. Early Jews do not develop their thoughts on
the self in philosophical discourses to the same degree as their Greek neighbours. But just as we can observe social conceptions of the self in texts that do
not overtly state, ‘This is a text concerned with the self’, we can also learn much
about, in this case, early Jewish conceptions of the ontology of the self from
various types of texts. Rich and complex anthropological ideas are present in
writings centred on early Jewish beliefs and assumptions about what happens
to the self when it encounters the divine.
Third, much of the discussion on ontological transformation centres on
the question of materiality. In fact, scholars have overlooked many important
aspects of the human self’s ontological state in the interest to answer this question definitively. The issue is whether or not the transformation inside humans
who possess the spirit of God is material or immaterial. Scholars are actually
98
I deal more fully with Schneider below in my fifth chapter (§2.1.3).
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approaching the question of self-transformation through the angle of pneumatology, not anthropology, whereas I approach the matter from a different
angle. I am not interested in the materiality or immateriality of the divine spirit. Rather, I am interested in the nature of the transformation and what this
reveals about the ontological state of the human creature in the presence of
God. Questions concerning the ontological materiality or immateriality of the
self and its transformation will appear in the following chapters. But as shall
become clear, this is not the only nor even the more important aspect with
which early Jews are concerned.
Fourth, the transformation that the self undergoes in God’s presence seems
relatively consistent. Scholars have shown a correlation between what the self
becomes and the realm or space with which it is contact. Based on the findings
of the scholars surveyed above, among others, it would appear that early Jews
understand the self to have a mimetic property, such that it becomes like God
(or the angels) when in contact with him or his space. I shall explore the notion
of ontological mimesis, and based on my own investigation of the texts, I shall
suggest that the notion of ontological mimesis in fact lies at the centre of early
Jewish anthropology.
4
Outline of Study
4.1
A Note on the Structure
The following study examines multiple varieties of early Judaism. Each chapter considers a different variety’s conception of the self according to its unique
historical and literary demands.99 By examining each variety on its own terms,
I am able to understand, on the one hand, what is happening in the text
itself, and on the other, the anthropological assumptions that lie beneath each
text. The structure of the book is as follows.
4.2
Chapter 2
Chapter 2 examines the anthropology of a non-philosophical variety of
Diaspora Judaism. By this is meant that broad grouping of Jews living outside
of Palestine from the Babylonian exile to the present. I investigate the Jewish work called Joseph and Aseneth, written in Greek possibly as early as the
first or second century bce. I argue here that the text presents Aseneth as the
99
For a similar approach and structure, albeit to a different question, see Schäfer, The Origins of Jewish Mysticism.
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bearer of the new creation, an ontological state she comes to possess through
her conversion to Judaism. The self as represented by Aseneth is able, through
intensive conditioning, to enter divine space and share in its ontological state.
In so doing, it participates in the reverse of the Fall, and by virtue of its newly
transformed state, makes this new state available to humanity. Aseneth is the
anti-Eve, and those who convert to Judaism share, like her, in the renewal of
fallen creation.
4.3
Chapter 3
Chapter 3 examines the anthropology of a philosophical variety of Diaspora
Judaism. Philo Judaeus (15 bce–50 ce) is the best representative of this variety, and looking at his account of the creation of the world called De opificio
mundi (On the Creation of the World) seems a natural choice for this chapter.
Philo sees the self as a tripartite being, with an inner part (divided into the
irrational and rational facets of the soul) and an outer part (the body). As I
demonstrate here, the constituent parts of the self are mixed together in a remarkable way. Philo depicts the soul as interspersed throughout the body like
a sponge and not, as many often assume, localised in the body. By following
the path of virtue and passing over the bridge of life, the self can enter God’s
space and obtain that ultimate state called ‘perfection’, or Telos, and reclaim
the divine state it possessed in its primordial days. This experience takes the
form of assimilation to God, in which the mind is absorbed by God like food
in the body and shares in his space, taking part in his likeness.
4.4
Chapter 4
Chapter 4 examines the anthropology of a sectarian variety of Judaism in its
homeland. The Dead Sea Scrolls provide a fascinating glimpse into this variety
of early Judaism. My examination focuses especially on Serekh ha-Yahad (Rule
of the Community), though a number of other sectarian works factor into this
discussion as well. According to these writings, the sectarians believe themselves to be united with the angels in such a way that, through participation in
the liturgies, the two otherwise distinct groups become a single, worshipping
unit. As a single unit, the humans and angels now participate in the celestial
dwelling of God. Sectarian anthropology asserts that the self has a collective
malleable potential. As a bounded space, that is, the individual self becomes
part of the collective (sectarian) self, who then unite with their angelic counterparts on a celestial plane. The ontological boundaries of the self are so
permeable that the individual can unite both with angels and with other members in the community.
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4.5
Chapter 5
Chapter 5 examines the anthropology of Rabbinic Judaism. Tractate Sotah of
the Babylonian Talmud, or Bavli, re-presents a widespread ancient tradition
in which the disciple of the Sages, by studying Torah and performing the wellknown prayer called the Amidah (among others), can enter God’s space even
without the Jerusalem Temple and behold his face. During this encounter, the
disciple ingests God’s presence through his eyes like one eats or drinks through
the mouth. The self undergoes transformation in which its own space shifts
in a way that it cannot completely be distinguished from God’s space, and the
divine presence overtakes the self to the point that it can now survive without
food or drink for long periods of time. Just as Moses became like the angels at
Sinai and the righteous shall become in the world to come, the self can likewise
partake in this transcendent state even now and overcome the most dreadful
of circumstances.
4.6
Chapter 6
Chapter 6 examines the anthropology of Hekhalot mysticism. The Hekhalot
mystics are contemporaneous to the rabbinic movement, and their ideas and
practices are preserved in the so-called Hekhalot literature. I investigate the
work called Hekhalot Zutarti, or the ‘Lesser Temples’, which offers instructions
for aspiring mystics who want to navigate the heavenly palaces and behold
God on his throne safely and successfully. Ontological aspects of the self are
perhaps more explicit in Hekhalot anthropology than in the anthropology of
any other variety of Judaism. According to Hekhalot anthropology, the self is
able to be changed both by and into the glory of God. But it does not undergo
transformation without first undergoing painful destruction. Through rigorous
praxis, the mystic descends into himself and enters heaven therein. Here he
traverses the various temples until he arrives at the highest heaven, where God
sits on his throne. Upon seeing God, the self undergoes terrible destruction,
for the presence of God is fatal to anyone it contacts. However, rather than
remain dead, the worthy self emerges on the other side radically and gloriously
transformed. It undergoes such a transformation that it now transcends even
the most powerful angels in heaven. It is now re-made of the incinerating fire
of which God himself is made and can now enjoy his presence in safety.
4.7
Chapter 7
The Conclusion achieves two aims. It summarises the findings of the foregoing
chapters and highlights important anthropological points raised throughout.
But more importantly, it puts forth a synthesis of early Jewish conceptions of
the self and argues that the self is a mimetic entity which mimics, imitates or
For use by the Author only | © 2017 Koninklijke Brill NV
introduction
31
participates in the ontological state of the realm with which it is in contact. In
suggesting this, it urges scholarship to begin to consider early Jewish anthropology in such terms and offers suggestions for further study.
5
Concluding Remarks
The five case studies that follow examine the self in unique varieties of
Judaism. The analyses that emerge will provide material from which, in the
Conclusion, to offer a sketch of early Jewish anthropology.
For use by the Author only | © 2017 Koninklijke Brill NV
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