Language:
Hebrew
Year of publication:
2023
Titel der Quelle:
תרביץ
Angaben zur Quelle:
פט,א (תשפג) 39-72
Keywords:
Angels in rabbinical literature
;
Amulets (Judaism)
;
Jewish magic
;
Incantation bowls
Abstract:
The topic of prayer to angels in the Jewish world in Antiquity and the Middle Ages is usually examined either from a rabbinic perspective, which forbids almost all forms of appeals to angels, or from the perspective of Christian, Karaite or Muslim polemical texts that claimed that Jews often pray to angels. In this paper I wish to focus on Jewish amulets from the Early Byzantine period, on Jewish incantation bowls from Sasanian Babylonia, and on medieval manuscripts that preserve copies of magical recipes and recipe books from Late Antiquity, in order to examine the many appeals to angels embedded in these texts. These appeals may be classified according to the mode of appealing to the angels, whether by way of adjuring and commanding them to do what they are told, or by way of friendly appeal and even servile request, to make them fulfill one’s needs. Moreover, many recipes instruct their users to perform elaborate rituals of self-purification before appealing to the angels, and to offer the angels gifts and sacrifices so that the appeal to them will bear the desired fruits. And in some cases, one may see how forms of appealing and praying to angels were adopted even in rabbinic literature and in the medieval prayer-manuals.
URL:
אתר את הפרסום בקטלוג המאוחד של ספריות ישראל
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