Ascent to Heaven in Jewish and Christian Apocalypses

1993-08-19 Religion

Author : Martha Himmelfarb
Release : 1993-08-19
Genre : Religion
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 658/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Ascent to Heaven in Jewish and Christian Apocalypses by : Martha Himmelfarb

Download or read book Ascent to Heaven in Jewish and Christian Apocalypses written by Martha Himmelfarb. This book was released on 1993-08-19. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a study of the ancient Jewish and Christian apocalypses involving ascent into heaven, which have received little scholarly attention in comparison to apocalypses concerned primarily with the end of the world. Recent developments like the publication of the Aramaic Enoch fragments from Qumran and interest in questions of genre in the study of the apocalypses make this a particularly appropriate time to undertake this study. Martha Himmelfarb places the apocalypses in relation to both their biblical antecedents and their context in the Greco-Roman world. Her analysis emphasizes the emergence of the understanding of heaven as temple in the Book of the Watchers, the earliest of these apocalypses, and the way in which this understanding affects the depiction of the culmination of ascent, the hero's achievement of a place among the angels, in the ascent apocalypses generally. It also considers the place of secrets of nature and primeval history in these works. Finally, it offers an interpretation of the pseudepigraphy of the apocalypses and their function.

Tours of Hell

2016-11-11 Literary Criticism

Author : Martha Himmelfarb
Release : 2016-11-11
Genre : Literary Criticism
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 778/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Tours of Hell by : Martha Himmelfarb

Download or read book Tours of Hell written by Martha Himmelfarb. This book was released on 2016-11-11. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the ancient Book of the Dead to Dante's Divine Comedy, the living have attempted to describe the world of the dead. Tours of Hell focuses on one form of that attempt: the tours of hell found in Jewish and Christian apocalypses of late antiquity and the early Middle Ages. Himmelfarb examines seventeen texts, preserved in five languages and spanning a thousand years of human history. These include Hebrew texts and Christian texts in Greek, Latin, Ethiopic, and Coptic, such as the Apocalypse of Peter and the Apocalypse of Paul family. Muslim texts, medieval visions, and other related literatures are also discussed. Himmelfarb details the common elements of the tour tradition, including such features as a hero or heroine figure, a heavenly revealer, and descriptions of the punishments awaiting those who arrive in hell. She convincingly refutes the accepted nineteenth-century critical view of the earliest of these tours, the Apocalypse of Peter, as a Christian form of an "Orphic-Pythagorean" descent to Hades. She place the work instead on the family tree of the tour apocalypse, a genre she traces back to the third century B.C.E. Book of the Watchers (1 Enoch 1-36). Linking the Apocalypse of Peter with later Jewish tours of hell, Himmelfarb reveals significant sin-and-punishment combinations that seem to point to a common source, which she theorizes to be a lost Jewish Tour work of the late Second Temple period. Rich and fascinating texts seldom before brought to light are treated in detail in this pioneering study. A comprehensive work on the apocalyptic tradition, Tours of Hell will be of great interest to scholars and students of religion, history, ancient and medieval literature, and Dante studies.

The Open Heaven

2002-08-01 Religion

Author : Christopher Rowland
Release : 2002-08-01
Genre : Religion
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 126/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis The Open Heaven by : Christopher Rowland

Download or read book The Open Heaven written by Christopher Rowland. This book was released on 2002-08-01. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Open Heaven offers a comprehensive discussion of Jewish apocalyptic literature and themes in the Second Temple period and in early Christianity. In it there is a sustained challenge to the widespread view that apocalypticism is a form of eschatology, and, it has been widely recognised as a significant contribution to the discussion of apcocalypticism in religion since it was first published twenty years ago. By concentrating on the revelatory character of apocalyptic texts rather than their diverse contents the author suggests that it is this aspect of the literature which best enables us to understand their distinctive religion. The book offers a sustained argument for the iew that apocalyptic literature is primarily about the disclosure of heavenly wisdom which offers recipients an understanding of life in the present. He also suggests that there ma be some evidence to support the view that apocalypses include reports of visionary experience. The approach to apocalypticism in early Christianity stresses the importance of the visionary element as a decisive element in the history of Christa origins.

Jewish and Christian Apocalypses

1914 Apocalyptic literature

Author : Francis Crawford Burkitt
Release : 1914
Genre : Apocalyptic literature
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : /5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Jewish and Christian Apocalypses by : Francis Crawford Burkitt

Download or read book Jewish and Christian Apocalypses written by Francis Crawford Burkitt. This book was released on 1914. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this time of intense apocalyptic interests, Burkitt's study of extra-biblical apocalypses will shed some light. Burkitt is known for his work in early Christianity, and he is well-equipped to deal with this difficult issue. These Schweich Lectures of 1913 address the book of Enoch, minor Jewish and early Christian apocalypses, especially the Ascension of Isaiah.

The Apocalypse

2010-01-22 Religion

Author : Martha Himmelfarb
Release : 2010-01-22
Genre : Religion
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 225/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis The Apocalypse by : Martha Himmelfarb

Download or read book The Apocalypse written by Martha Himmelfarb. This book was released on 2010-01-22. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This accessible and enlightening history provides insights into thefascinating genre of apocalyptic literature, showing how theapocalypse encompasses far more than popular views of the lastjudgment and violent end of the world might suggest. An accessible and enlightening history of the"apocalypses"--ancient Jewish and Christian works -- providingfresh insights into the fascinating genre of literature Shows how the apocalypses were concerned not only with popularviews of the last judgment and violent end of the world, but withreward and punishment after death, the heavenly temple, and therevelation of astronomical phenomena and other secrets ofnature Traces the tradition of apocalyptic writing through the MiddleAges, through to the modern era, when social movements stillprophesise the world’s imminent demise

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