Michael E. Stone – författare

Were there groups in Ancient Judaism that cultivated esoteric knowledge and transmitted it secretly? With the discovery and burgeoning study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and particularly of the documents legislating the social structure of the Qumran group, the foremost paradigm for analysis of the group's social structure has become the "sect." This is still dominant, having replacing the monastic paradigm used by some of the earliest scholars of the Scrolls.But after studying what has been written on secret societies more generally, Michael Stone has concluded that many known ancient Jewish groupsthe Qumran covenanters, Josephus's and Philo's Essenes, and Philo's Therapeutaeshould be viewed as societies at the heart of whose existence were esoteric knowledge and practice. Guarding and transmitting this esoteric knowledge and practice, Stone argues, provided the dynamic that motivated the social and conceptual structure of these groups. Analyzing them as secret societies, he says, enables us to see previously latent social structural dimensions, and provides many new enriching insights into the groups, including the Dead Sea covenanters.By examining historical and literary sources, Stone uncovers evidence for the existence of other secret groups in ancient Jewish society. This line of study leads Stone not only to consider the "classical" Jewish apocalypses as pseudo-esoteric, but also to discern in them the footsteps of hidden, truly esoteric traditions cultivated in the circles that produced the apocalypses. This discovery has significant implications, especially considering the enormous growth of study of the apocalyptic in the Judaism of the Second Temple period and in nascent Christianity over the last seventy years.

The Jewish culture of the Hellenistic and early Roman periods established a basis for all monotheistic religions, but its main sources have been preserved to a great degree through Christian transmission. This Guide is devoted to problems of preservation, reception, and transformation of Jewish texts and traditions of the Second Temple period in the many Christian milieus from the ancient world to the late medieval era. It approaches this corpus not as an artificial collection of reconstructed texts--a body of hypothetical originals--but rather from the perspective of the preserved materials, examined in their religious, social, and political contexts. It also considers the other, non-Christian, channels of the survival of early Jewish materials, including Rabbinic, Gnostic, Manichaean, and Islamic. This unique project brings together scholars from many different fields in order to map the trajectories of early Jewish texts and traditions among diverse later cultures. It also provides a comprehensive and comparative introduction to this new field of study while bridging the gap between scholars of early Judaism and of medieval Christianity.

It was once common consensus that there was no significant Jewish community in ancient and medieval Armenia. The discovery and excavation (1997-2002) of a Jewish cemetery of the thirteenth-fourteenth centuries in southern Armenia substantially changed this picture. In this volume, Stone and Topchyan assemble evidence about the Jews of Armenia from earliest times to the fourteenth century. Based on research of the Greco-Roman period, the authors are able to draw new conclusions about the transfer of Jews--including the High Priest Hyrcanus--from the north of Palestine and other countries to Armenia by King Tigran the Great in the first century BCE. The fact that descendants of King Herod ruled in Armenia in Roman times and that some noble Armenian families may have had Jewish origin is discussed. The much-debated identification of the "Mountains of Ararat" of Noah's Ark fame as well as ancient biblical and other references to Ararat and the Caucasus are re-assessed, and new evidence is adduced that challenges the scientific consensus. The role of Jews during the Seljuk, Mongol, and later times is also presented, from surviving sources in Armenian, Arabic, Hebrew, and others. The volume also includes studies of medieval Jewish sources on Armenia and the Armenians and of communication between Armenia and the Holy Land. Documents from the Cairo Geniza, newly uncovered inscriptions, medieval itineraria, and diplomatica also throw light on Armenia in the context of the Turkic Khazar kingdom, which converted to Judaism in the latter part of the first century CE. It responds both to new archeological discoveries in Armenia and to the growing interest in the history of the region that extends north from the Euphrates and into the Caucasus.