Scholastic magic : ritual and revelation in early Jewish mysticism
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Scholastic magic : ritual and revelation in early Jewish mysticism
Princeton University Press, c1996
Available at 2 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
Note
Bibliography: p. [231]-247
Includes indexes
Description and Table of Contents
Description
In exploring the social background of early Jewish mysticism, "Scholastic magic" tells the story of how imagination and magic were made to serve memory and scolasticism. In the visionary literature that circulated between the fifth and ninth centuries, there are strange tales of ancient rabbis conjuring the angel known as Sar-Torah, the "Prince of the Torah". This angel endowed the rabbis themselves with spectacular memory and skill in learning, and then taught them the formulas for giving others these gifts. This literature according to Michael Swartz, gives us rare glimpses of how ancient and medieval Jews who stood outside the mainstream of Rabbinic leadership viewed Torah and ritual. Through close readings of the texts, he uncovered unfamiliar dimensions of the classical Judaic idea of Torah and the Rabbinic civilization that forged them. Swartz sets the stage for his final analysis with a discussion of the place of memory and orality in ancient and medieval Judaism and how early educational and physiological theories were marshalled for the cultivation of memory.
He then examines the unusual magical rituals for conjuring angels and ascending to heaven as well as the author's attitudes to authority and tradition, showing them to have subverted essential Rabbinic values even as they remained beholden to them. The result is a ground-breaking analysis of the social and conceptual background of Rabbinic Judaism and ancient mediterranean religions. Offering complete translations of the principal Sar-Torah texts, "Scholastic magic" will become essential reading for those interested in religion in the ancient and medieval world, ritual studies, and popular religion.
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