Table Of Content

Apocalyptic and Merkavah Mysticism Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity Arbeiten zur Geschichte des antiken Judentums und des Urchristentums Founding Editor Martin Hengel † (Tübingen) Executive Editors Cilliers Breytenbach (Berlin) Martin Goodman (Oxford) Editorial Board Lutz Doering (Münster) – Pieter W. van der Horst (Utrecht) Tal Ilan (Berlin) – Judith Lieu (Cambridge) Tessa Rajak (Reading/Oxford ) – Daniel R. Schwartz ( Jerusalem) Seth Schwartz (New York) VOLUME 90 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/ajec Apocalyptic and Merkavah Mysticism Second, Revised Edition By Ithamar Gruenwald LEIDEN | BOSTON Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Gruenwald, Ithamar. Apocalyptic and Merkavah mysticism / by Ithamar Gruenwald. — Second, revised edition. pages cm. — (Ancient Judaism and early Christianity) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-13602-1 (hardback : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-90-04-27920-9 (e-book) 1. Mysticism—Judaism. 2. Apocalyptic literature. 3. Throne of God. I. Title. BM723.G78 2014 296.7’12—dc23 2014020718 This publication has been typeset in the multilingual ‘Brill’ typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, ipa, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 1871-6636 isbn 978 90 04 13602 1 (hardback) isbn 978 90 04 27920 9 (e-book) Copyright 2014 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill nv incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Global Oriental and Hotei Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. 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Contents Preface vii List of Abbreviations and Transcriptions ix PART 1 Introduction 3 1 The Quest for the Mystical Reality: Reflections on the Ontological Provenance of the Hekhalot Hymns and Visions 7 2 Two Essential Qualities of Jewish Apocalyptic 44 3 The Mystical Elements in Apocalyptic 68 4 The Attitude Towards the Merkavah Speculations in the Literature of the Tannaim and Amoraim 111 5 The Hekhalot Literature 134 PART 2 Introduction 161 Reʾuyot Yeḥezkel 168 Hekhalot Zutarti 176 Hekhalot Rabbati 184 Maʿaseh Merkavah 206 Hekhalot Fragments 213 Sefer Hekhalot (3 Enoch) 217 vi contents Merkavah Rabbah 234 Masekhet Hekhalot 241 Shiʿur Qomah 245 Physiognomy, Chiromancy and Metoposcopy 249 Sefer Ha-Razim 255 Concluding Chapter When Magical Techniques and Mystical Practices Become Neighbors: Methodological Considerations 264 Appendices by Saul Lieberman 291 1. Metatron, the Meaning of his Name and his Functions 291 2. The Knowledge of Halakha by the Author (or Authors) of the Heikhaloth 297 Selected Bibliography 301 Index 310 Preface The revised edition of this book is a project, which has been planned for a long time. In fact, since the first edition went out of print and was no longer available, many readers who have expressed their wish to access the book have found it difficult if not impossible to purchase even a second hand copy. The revised edition contains new introductory and concluding chapter, a Select Bibliography, and a new Index. Further more, substantial corrections and changes have been made in the original text. The changes concern matters of language and style, they nuance the line of argumentation, and they update the discussion of major issues. The new chapters fill several scholarly gaps that have opened since the initial publication of this book in 1980. The new “Chapter One” explores new venues and issues in the study and assessment of the Hekhalot literature and relevant passages in apocalyptic literature, and this in terms of epistemological and ontological considerations. The “Concluding Chapter” suggests a new approach to the study of mystical theurgy and magic in terms of ritual study and theory. A major factor that contributed to the enormous change in the scholarly interest in the Hekhalot literature after the publication of the first edition of this book is the series of volumes of the Hekhalot Literatur (including a concor- dance) prepared by Peter Schäfer and his research teams.1 They made printed editions of the relevant texts accessible to the scholarly world. Previously— and this was the case when I worked on the first edition—only manuscripts scattered through various libraries or their photographic reproductions were available. The few printed editions of the texts at hand were not as reliable as the manuscripts themselves. Naturally, responsible discussions of all the studies that have been published in the field since the publication of the first edition are beyond the capacity of a revised text. Taking into consideration the updated and annotated electronic bibliography prepared by Don Karr (http://www.digital-brilliance.com/ contributed/Karr/Biblios/mmhie.pdf), which consists of more than forty pages of items, one could justifiably draw the conclusion that an altogether new book should have been written. A revision of the original text cannot do full justice to the wealth of material published after the publication of the first edition. However, essential issues in that material have been carefully consid- ered in revising the present edition. Naturally, not every reference could be 1 Published by J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), Tübingen, 1981–1988. These volumes were followed by a series of translations into German by the same teams of scholars and publisher. viii preface taken up and discussed at length. Only studies that bear direct relevance to my discussion have been included in this edition. I decided to bypass debates that would have given the book what I consider a wearisome twist. Instead, I have put new agenda on the discussion table, which will alert the reader to the scholarly relevance of issues that previously did not receive the kind of attention they deserve. Furthermore, I reconsidered almost every issue in the first edition and made the necessary changes. As indicated, epistemological questions and matters of ritual theory, which relate to the essence of the Hekhalot writings, are now in the foreground. In this respect, attention is given to the ontology that sustains the visionary experiences and, particularly, the role of hymnic materials in the realization of that ontology. The ritual aspects of the mystical and theurgic practices receive a new mode of theoretical and practical consideration. As a result, the subject matter contained in the book now highlights the epistemological cogency of the mental experiences that sustain the Hekhalot writings and the ritual theory that underlies the theurgic and magical practices. So far, the absence of these discussions has constituted a gap that had to be filled with due scrutiny. J. R. Davila’s Hekhalot Literature in Translation: Major Texts of Merkavah Mysticism (Leiden – Boston: Brill, 2013) came out too late to be consulted for this edition. The English translations of passages from Hekhalot Rabbati were taken from the electronic edition prepared by Don Karr (http://www.digital- brilliance.com/kab/karr/HekRab/HekRab.pdf). Karr’s extended “Preface to the January 2009 Edition” provides the story of that translation, which reflects the work of Morton Smith done over a long period. I took the liberty of mak- ing several changes to the English text, which, as the recently updated version of Karr’s Preface makes clear, I have good reason to believe that Morton Smith would have accepted. Furthermore, Don Karr read the final draft of this edition and made numerous stylistic and other suggestions. They considerably improved my line of argumentation. I am indebted to his friendly help and the open line of communication that the work on this edition initiated. Finally yet importantly, an old colleague at Brill, Ms. Loes (Louise) Schouten, was for many years the driving force behind this publication. More recently, Ms. Mattie Kuiper took upon herself the publishing responsibility and patiently stayed with the publication through all its unfortunate delays. They and my old publisher, Brill, on whose behalf they work, deserve thanks and the warm grati- tude of the writer and his readers. I also wish to thank Dr. Lieve Teugels, the diligent copy-editor on behalf of Brill. Jerusalem, November 2013 List of Abbreviations and Transcriptions Abbreviations OGIS = Orientis Graeci Inscriptiones Selectae TB = Talmud Babylonicum TP = Talmud Palaestinense Transcriptions א = ʾ כּ = k ע = ʿ כ = kh ב = v צ = ẓ (sometimes: tz) ו = w ק = q (sometimes: k) ח = ḥ ש = sh (sometimes: sch) ט = ṭ (sometimes: t) ת = t