FORTHCOMING BOOK FROM SUNY PRESS:
The Greatest Mirror
Heavenly Counterparts in the Jewish Pseudepigrapha
Andrei A. Orlov - Author
Price: $95.00
Hardcover - 300 pages
Release Date: November 2017
ISBN10: N/A
ISBN13: 978-1-4384-6691-0
And there's a description at Professor Orlov's
Academia.edu page:
Abstract:
This book is a wide-ranging exploration of the heavenly double traditions in early Jewish pseudepigraphical accounts. The study treats the application of the heavenly twin imagery to human and otherworldly figures in its full historical and interpretive complexity through a broad variety of Jewish sources, from the patriarchical narratives of the Hebrew Bible to later Jewish mystical testimonies. This work argues for the Jewish origins of the heavenly counterpart motif by demonstrating its close connection with theophanic imagery manifested in the biblical accounts. The book demonstrates that the memories of almost all major biblical theophanies became crucial conceptual nexuses for unfolding the heavenly counterpart speculations in the Jewish pseudepigrapha. This study thus affirms a hypothesis that the complex symbolism of the heavenly double, found in early Jewish materials, takes its inspiration not from the Greco-Roman or the “Iranian” mythologies, as previously suggested by some scholars, but instead represents an authentic Jewish phenomenon deeply rooted in the theophanic traditions of the Hebrew Bible. This work also represents the first complete effort to show how some Jewish pseudepigraphical works, like 2 Enoch and the Ladder of Jacob, preserved solely in the Slavonic language, develop several unique traditions regarding heavenly counterparts.
I've noted a recent book on the same topic, but dealing with a different ancient literary corpus,
here and
here.