Review of Schäfer, The Origins of Jewish Mysticism

BOOK REVIEW at H-JUDAIC:

Peter Schäfer. The Origins of Jewish Mysticism. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009. xv + 398 pp. $35.00 (paper), ISBN 978-0-691-14215-9.

Reviewed by Mark Verman (Wright State University)
Published on H-Judaic (May, 2012)
Commissioned by Jason Kalman

Early Jewish Mystical Literature

Peter Schäfer’s new monograph The Origins of Jewish Mysticism (hereafter OJM) is a magisterial tour de force. Owing to the breadth of the material that is covered and Schäfer’s consistently lucid, methodical, and incisive analysis, this book is an instant classic and will become the benchmark for all subsequent discussions of the topic. Schäfer’s lengthy and productive career has revolved around his incomparable contribution to the publication and scholarly analysis of that corpus of writings known as Hekhalot (Temples/Palaces) texts. An examination of these particular works constitutes the culmination of his current book. In fact, the basic agenda of OJM is an attempt to discover to what extent the pre-Hekhalot writings, biblical and post-biblical, can be seen as anticipating the mystical experience delineated in the Hekhalot corpus.

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I reviewed this book at the 2010 Society of Biblical Literature meeting. A revised version of that review has recently been published in Dead Sea Discoveries (requires paid personal or institutional subscription to access).