Trajectories in Near Eastern Apocalyptic: A Postrabbinic Jewish Apocalypse Reader

Modern treatments of Jewish apocalyptic usually terminate their discussions of this literature with the triumph of Rome over nationalist rebels at the time of the Second Jewish Revolt (132-135 CE). They hence fail to appreciate the impact of the subsequent rise of scriptural authority for the Abrahamic religions and the renewed vitality of the apocalyptic genre as a favored literary vehicle for the expression of social and cultural concerns by the major Near Eastern religious communities during the second half of the first millennium CE. The present volume begins the process of righting this imbalance by providing an English-language anthology of a series of influential Jewish apocalypses emanating from the Near East from roughly the early seventh to the mid-twelfth centuries CE. Each text is newly translated into English and provided with an annotated commentary that elucidates its historical, literary, and religious contexts.