New book: Schnieder, The Appearance of the High Priest

NEW BOOK from Cherub Press:

The Appearance of the High Priest – Theophany, Apotheosis and Binitarian Theology: From Priestly Tradition of the Second Temple Period through Ancient Jewish Mysticism, by Michael Schneider, מראה כהן: תיאופניה, אפותיאוזה, ותיאולוגיה בינארית – בין ההגות הכהנית בתקופת הבית השני לבין המיסטיקה היהודית הקדומה (Sources and Studies in the Literature of Jewish Mysticism 30; 2012, 384 pages, ISBN 1-933379-25-1, $42, in Hebrew). This volume is the first of three volumes in a major scholarly reassessment of mystical traditions in the Second Temple period, which explores the variety of early religious traditions across diverse bodies of literature and in various languages. The symbolic, mythic and mystical features of these traditions, their transmission and migration histories and their reappearance in some medieval texts is further investigated. At the heart of this volume is the concept of the encounter and communion between the high priest and God, which implies an anthropomorphic theophany (the appearance of the God in human form) and the apotheosis (deification) of the high priest. This phenomenon is understood in the framework of a binitarian theology that distinguishes the hidden God from His visible appearance. These concepts appear as sources for many latter mystical traditions.