Monday, April 26, 2010

Late apocalypses online

PSEUDEPIGRAPHA WATCH: Trajectories in Near Eastern Apocalyptic: A Postrabbinic Jewish Apocalypse Reader, by John C. Reeves, is available online at Google Books. Much, but not all of the text is included.

This from Sigrid Peterson on the PSCO list, in response to an announcement of lecture by Professor Martha Himmelfarb last week (22 April) at the University of Pennsylvania, to which I wish I could have gone. This is the abstract:
“Revelation after the Rabbis: Sefer Zerubbabel and Sefer Eliyyahu”

Abstract: /Sefer Zerubbabel /and /Sefer Eliyyahu/, often described as medieval Hebrew apocalypses, were composed in the first part of the seventh century. They thus faced the challenge of offering their revelations to a world that was not only post-biblical but also post-talmudic. I will discuss the implications of this situation for the content of their revelations and the quite different ways they present them, suggesting that /Sefer Eliyyahu /shows a much greater affinity for rabbinic values and rabbinic literary style than /Sefer Zerubbabel /and considering the implications of /Sefer Zerubbabel/’s distance from rabbinic culture.

Bibliography - Please read the texts if possible. Probably the most convenient place to get the translations of the two works is John Reeves, /Trajectories in Near Eastern Apocalyptic: A Postrabbinic Jewish Apocalypse Reader /(2005). I translated /Sefer Zerubbabel /in /Rabbinic Fantasies/, ed. David Stern and Mark Jay Mirsky (1990). The originals of both works await real editions. The most convenient source for the Hebrew of both works is probably Yehudah Even-Shmuel, /Midreshei Ge'ulah/, but be warned that these are "improved" version. Reeves refers you to other editions of the two works.