Abstract: In recent decades, attention has increasingly been paid to the shifting and multifaceted meanings of the "mystical" in a variety of cultural, historical, and linguistic contexts and discourses. As a result, scholars largely agree that the term "mysticism" can neither be uncritically imposed on ancient texts nor commonly utilized to connote a single, universal, timeless phenomenon. With this in mind, this essay adopts a contextualized perspective and aims to elucidate the manner in which distinct notions, embedded in early Jewish sources, can be categorized as "mystical." I discuss this topic with a focus on one heuristic model: the Merkavah mysticism of the Hekhalot literature.
Publication Year: 2016
Publication Date: 2016-04-18
Language: en
Type: book-chapter
Indexed In: ['crossref']
Access and Citation
Cited By Count: 1
AI Researcher Chatbot
Get quick answers to your questions about the article from our AI researcher chatbot