Demons, Angels, and Writing in Ancient Judaism

Description

What did ancient Jews believe about demons and angels? This question has long been puzzling, not least because the Hebrew Bible says relatively little about such transmundane powers. In the centuries after the conquests of Alexander the Great, however, we find an explosion of explicit and systematic interest in, and detailed discussions of, demons and angels. In this book, Annette Yoshiko Reed considers the third century BCE as a critical moment for the beginnings of Jewish angelology and demonology. Drawing on early 'pseudepigrapha' and Aramaic Dead Sea Scrolls, she reconstructs the scribal settings in which transmundane powers became a topic of concerted Jewish interest. Reed also situates this development in relation to shifting ideas about scribes and writing across the Hellenistic Near East. Her book opens a window onto a forgotten era of Jewish literary creativity that nevertheless deeply shaped the discussion of angels and demons in Judaism and Christianity.

Annette Yoshiko Reed is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Religious Studies and Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University. A scholar of Judaism and Christianity, she focuses on questions of identity and literary practice across Second Temple Judaism and Late Antiquity. Her research looks to non-canonical and other neglected sources to open new perspectives on ancient Jews and Christians. Her books include Fallen Angels and the History of Judaism and Christianity (Cambridge, 2005) and Jewish-Christianity and the History of Judaism (2018), as well as a number of edited volumes.

'By far the most richly textured and lucid explanation of demonology and angelology I have ever seen. Demons, Angels, and Writing is a consummate work of historical scholarship, capturing the imaginative worlds of ancient Jewish scribes with eloquence and insight. And in taking demons, angels, and the multiplicity of divine forces seriously in ancient religious experience, Reed makes an important contribution to the history of religions more generally.' David Frankfurter, William Goodwin Aurelio Chair of the Appreciation of Scripture, Boston University 'This wide-ranging, immensely learned, study brings a new angle of vision to bear on the transformation of Judaism in the Hellenistic age. Focusing on the new attention to angels and demons, Reed argues that this development has more to do with new conceptions of knowledge than with the theological understanding of evil or with political resistance. This is a major contribution that should stimulate extensive reassessment of Judaism in this formative period.' John J. Collins, Holmes Professor of Old Testament, Yale University '... carefully argued technical study ... a fine-grained analysis ...' J. S. Kaminsky, Choice