Heavenly Realms and Earthly Realities in Late Antique Religions

Ra'anan S. Boustan is Assistant Professor in the Department of Classical and Near Eastern Studies at the University of Minnesota. A scholar of early Jewish mysticism, relations between Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the history of the Jews in the Second Temple Period, he has published studies on early Jewish mystical poetry and the role of gender and sexuality within Hellenistic Jewish thought, among other topics. Annette Yoshiko Reed is Assistant Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at McMaster University. She has contributed to the Journal of Biblical Literature, Vigiliae Christianae, and Jewish Studies Quarterly, and is co-editor of The Ways that Never Parted: Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages.

Review of the hardback: 'The volume makes a valuable contribution to a topic of growing interest in recent study of ancient religion.' Journal for the Study of the Old Testament

• Introduction: 'In Heaven as it is on Earth' Ra'anan S. Bouston and Annette Yoshiko Reed; Part I. Between Earth and Heaven: 1. The bridge and the ladder: narrow passages in late antique visions Fritz Graf; 2. 'Heavenly Steps': Manilius 4.119-121 and its background Katharina Volk; 3. Heavenly ascent, angelic descent, and the transmission of knowledge in 1 Enoch 6-16 Annette Yoshiko Reed; 4. 'Connecting Heaven and Earth': the function of the hymns in Revelation 4-5 Gottfried Schimanowski; 5. Working overtime in afterlife; or, no rest for the virtuous Sarah Iles Johnson; Part II. Institutionalising Heaven: 6. Earthly sacrifice and heavenly incense: the law of priesthood in Aramaic Levi and Jubilees Martha Himmelfarb; 7. Who's on the throne?: revelation in the long year John W. Marshall; 8. The earthly monastery and the transformation of the heavenly city in late antique Egypt Kirsti B. Copeland; 9. Contextualising heaven in third-century North Africa Jan N. Bremmer; 10. Bringing the heavenly academy down to earth: approaches to the imagery of divine pedagogy in the East-Syrian tradition Adam H. Becker; Part III. Tradition and Innovation: 11. Angels in the architecture: temple art and the poetics of praise in the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice Ra'anan S. Bouston; 12. The collapse of celestial and chthonic realms in late antique 'Appollonian Invocation' (PGMI 262-347) Christopher A. Faraone; 13. In heaven as it is in hell: the cosmology of Seder Rabbah di-Bereshit Peter Schäfer; 14. The faces of the moon: cosmology, genesis and the Mithras Liturgy Radcliffe G. Edmonds III; 15. 'O Paradoxical Fusion!': Gregory of Nazianzus on baptism and cosmology (Orations 38-40) Susanna Elm.