Studia in Veteris Testamenti Pseudepigrapha – serie

This volume is a study of two of the most important Slavonic apocalypses, the Apocalypse of Abraham and 2 Enoch, as crucial conceptual links between the symbolic universes of Second Temple apocalypticism and early Jewish mysticism. The study seeks to understand the mediating role of these Slavonic pseudepigraphical texts in the development of Jewish angelological and theophanic traditions from Second Temple apocalypticism to later Jewish Merkabah mysticism attested in the Hekhalot and Shiʿur Qomah materials. The study shows that mediatorial traditions of the principal angels and the exalted patriarchs and prophets played an important role in facilitating the transition from apocalypticism to early Jewish mysticism.

A New Reading of the Animal Apocalypse of 1 Enoch is the most comprehensive theological commentary on this important second-century BCE Jewish apocalypse to date, laying out the purpose and methodology of this Enochic allegory and using this as the basis for a new commentary on the whole text, presented here in a fresh translation. Against other interpretations that focus on Israel and its institutions, Daniel Olson argues that the promise of universal blessing in the Abrahamic covenant is presented in the Animal Apocalypse as the governing dynamic in a sacred history that begins and ends with humanity in general. The authentic Jacob/Israel will appear in the end times and be the catalyst of universal salvation

The Armenian Apocalyptic Tradition: A Comparative Perspective comprises a collection of essays on apocalyptic literature in the Armenian tradition. This collection is unprecedented in its subject and scope and employs a comparative approach that situates the Armenian apocalyptic tradition within a broader context. The topics in this volume include the role of apocalyptic literature and apocalypticism in the conversion of the Armenians to Christianity, apocalyptic ideology and holy war, the significance of the Book of Daniel in Armenian thought, the reception of the Apocalypse of Ps.-Methodius in Armenian, the role of apocalyptic literature in political ideologies, and the expression of apocalypticism in the visual arts.

The books of Enoch are famed for having been “lost” in the Middle Ages but “rediscovered” by modern scholars. But was this really the case? This volume is the first to explore the reception of Enochic texts and traditions between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries. Bringing specialists in antiquity into conversation with specialists in early modernity, it reveals a much richer story with a more global scope. Contributors show how Enoch and the era before the Flood were newly reimagined, not just by scholars, but also by European artists and adventurers, Kabbalists, Sufis, Mormons, and Ethiopian and Slavonic Christians.