Eva Mroczek – författare

The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls revealed a world of early Jewish writing larger than the Bible, from multiple versions of biblical texts to "revealed" books not found in our canon. Despite this diversity, the way we read Second Temple Jewish literature remains constrained by two anachronistic categories: a theological one, "Bible," and a bibliographic one, "book." The Literary Imagination in Jewish Antiquity suggests ways of thinking about how Jews understood their own literature before these categories had emerged.Using familiar sources such as the Psalms, Ben Sira, and Jubilees, Mroczek tells an unfamiliar story about sacred writing not bound in a Bible. In many texts, we see an awareness of a vast tradition of divine writing found in multiple locations only partially revealed in available scribal collections. Ancient heroes like David are not simply imagined as scriptural authors, but multi-dimensional characters who come to be known as great writers and honored as founders of growing textual traditions. Scribes recognize the divine origin of texts like the Enoch literature and other writings revealed to ancient patriarchs, which present themselves not as derivative of material we now call biblical, but prior to it. Sacred writing stretches back to the dawn of time, yet new discoveries are always around the corner.While listening to the way ancient writers describe their own literature-their own metaphors and narratives about writing-this book also argues for greater suppleness in our own scholarly imagination, no longer bound by modern canonical and bibliographic assumptions.

The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls revealed a world of early Jewish writing larger than the Bible, from multiple versions of biblical texts to "revealed" books not found in our canon. Despite this diversity, the way we read Second Temple Jewish literature remains constrained by two anachronistic categories: a theological one, "Bible," and a bibliographic one, "book." The Literary Imagination in Jewish Antiquity suggests ways of thinking about how Jews understood their own literature before these categories had emerged. In many Jewish texts, there is an awareness of a vast tradition of divine writing found in multiple locations that is only partially revealed in available scribal collections. Sacred writing stretches back to the dawn of time, yet new discoveries are always around the corner.Using familiar sources such as the Psalms, Ben Sira, and Jubilees, Eva Mroczek tells an unfamiliar story about sacred writing not bound in a Bible. In listening to the way ancient writers describe their own literature-rife with their own metaphors and narratives about writing--The Literary Imagination in Jewish Antiquity also argues for greater suppleness in our own scholarly imagination, no longer bound by modern canonical and bibliographic assumptions.

From the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls to the Zohar, this is the untold story behind our enduring fascination with lost and found religious textsThe Dead Sea Scrolls, the oldest biblical manuscripts ever found, were discovered in a cave by a shepherd and his goat. This story is mostly true, and it is not the first such tale about long-lost books. Legend has it that the Zohar—the foundational text of Jewish Kabbalah—was lost for centuries before being discovered in a cave by a farmer, who sold it to spice merchants as packing material. It was only when a scholar picked through a trash heap and joined the fragments together that the world recovered its mystical secrets. These are just two of many tales recounting the discovery of ancient religious manuscripts.Tracing a time-honored pattern of storytelling about lost and recovered sacred texts, Eva Mroczek reveals a surprising feature of Jewish and Christian thought: the idea that scripture is not complete—that it is partly lost, destroyed, or hidden—is not only the stuff of fantasy novels and conspiracy theories. Mroczek shows that modern scholarly mythmaking is more tightly bound with Jewish and Christian legends than we may think. Through the lens of discovery tales, this innovative book explores how traditions live in tension with the possibility of unknown pasts and surprising discoveries.