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Thursday, April 28, 2022

Review of Schäfer, Two Gods in Heaven

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: Book Note | Two Gods in Heaven: Jewish Concepts of God in Antiquity (Josiah Bisbee).
Peter Schäfer. Two Gods in Heaven: Jewish Concepts of God in Antiquity. Translated by Allison Brown. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2020.

... Schäfer’s overall argument, that binitarian views were more widespread and ongoing in ancient and late antique Judaism than commonly assumed, is provocative, and a number of his examples are convincing. At the same time, his work also raises some questions regarding whether or not so-called binitarinism is a proper label for what is portrayed in some of these texts, as many seem to describe far more than just two powers in heaven ...

I noted the publication of the English translation of this (originally German) book here.

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