Jewish Mysticism: Late Antiquity (Jewish Mysticism in Late Antiquity) (Volume 1) [Hardcover]

Joseph Dan (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 076576007X | ISBN-13: 978-0765760074 | Publication Date: November 1, 1998

Interest in Jewish mysticism is, in our generation, widespread and growing. From Hebrew schools to Hollywood, people of all backgrounds and levels of knowledge are pursuing the subject. Books, magazines, journals, and classes are rapidly growing in number.

One result of this burst of interest and popularization of Jewish mysticism is the problem of misinformation. The need for reliable source material has become crucial.

This four-volume work by Professor Joseph Dan is a monumental event in the publishing history of English-language reference books on the subject of Jewish mystical thought and practice. Professor Dan's credentials are of the highest order. The recipient of the Israel Prize (considered to be Israel's highest honor), Joseph Dan is the Gershom Scholem Professor of Kabbalah at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and continues to be a visiting professor at some of the most prestigious institutions of higher learning in the world.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Dan, a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a leading expert in Jewish mysticism and Kabbalah, presents a fundamental work on the history of Jewish mysticism, the first written on such a large scale and one that represents 30 years of work. Dan expounds on the most essential issues of each period from ancient to recent times. The problems he considers include the origins of Jewish mysticism in the biblical, postbiblical, and medieval periods, the succession of ideas and perceptions from one master to another, and schools of Jewish mystics and their reciprocal influences. Dan clarifies the relationship between mysticism and Kabbalah and their place within the Jewish religion. In the final volume, he deals with matters of a more general or comparative nature. Here he lays out the general characteristics of Jewish mysticism, making it possible to compare its character to similar developments in world religions such as Christianity and Islam. Most of the studies in this field have been translated from the Hebrew, and this large work makes the ideas of Dan and other Israeli researchers especially accessible to academics outside of Israel. Unfortunately, though Dan has included a tremendous amount of information, its presentation is not always successful; the prose is scholarly and dry and could have used some editing. Moshe Idel's Messianic Mystics (LJ 10/1/98) is a clearer work on the subject. Dan's work is recommended primarily for academic institutions dealing with any aspect of Jewish studies and secondly for those concerned with general and comparative religion and theology, as well as occult studies. Because it is comprehensive and written in English, it could also be recommended for public libraries.?Hayim Y. Sheynin, Gratz Coll. Lib., Melrose Park, PA
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Joseph Dan serves as the Gershom Scholem Professor of Kabbalah in the Department of Jewish Thought of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he has taught since 1958 and been a full professor since 1978. He has also served as a visiting professor in universities the world over, among them, Princeton, Columbia, Brown, University College, London, the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris, and Jewish Theological Seminary.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 330 pages
• Publisher: Jason Aronson, Inc. (November 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 076576007X
• ISBN-13: 978-0765760074
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,264,023 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Handy & enjoyable, June 8, 2009

By 

Harold A. Roth (Elmira, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Jewish Mysticism: Late Antiquity (Jewish Mysticism in Late Antiquity) (Volume 1) (Hardcover)

This book is a nice compact overview of a number of schools of early Jewish mysticism. Dan is pretty even-handed, IMO, and his writing is clear and not highly technical. He is a good scholar, citing sources and thereby providing a lot of paths for further exploration; I've found it invaluable for this alone, locating lots of writing on Hekhalot and translations of some of its texts I would not have otherwise known of. It is composed of a collection of articles, but they do indeed fit well together, which is nicely surprising. I have read many other article collections that did not.

One of the things that made me cheer this book out loud, though, was his absolute lambasting of people like Eliade and Campbell, whom he rightly accused of being ahistorical and of being unable to credit people or cultures with creativity and originality. He pointed out how Eliade and other reactionary scholars look at the world and see nothing but their own face. It indicated to me that this was someone who was able to place a phenomenon in its historical context, so the reader could have some understanding of where concepts might have arisen, if they were borrowed, how they had been modified if they had been borrowed, how those concepts served that moment in time, and so forth.

All in all, this is a very gratifying book. I expect to buy the rest of the volumes.