Tváře merkavy

This book by the distinguished American scholar of Jewish history and religion, now Professor Emeritus David J. Halperin (b. 1947) of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, takes the reader into the realm of Jewish interpretation of selected chapters from Ezekiel's prophecy, which include the vision of God's throne chariot (Hebrew merkavah). It explores the common characteristics and unique features that the related motifs and images take on in written sources, beginning with the earliest layers of interpretation (in the Apocalyptic, midrashic collections, both Talmuds, and Heichalot literature) to their transformation in early Christian and Islamic sources. In doing so, he emphasizes the analysis of records associated with mystical practice, the so-called "work of the merkavah," tracing everything from the first centuries of antiquity to the early Middle Ages. The author, in his polemics with contemporary representatives of the field and in dialogue with ancient authors, tries to answer the question of the degree of homogeneity of the then traditions of "ascent to heaven" and the practice embedded in them, which sometimes took place in the realm of "underground" currents of mysticism, gnosis and magic. Here, he posits the development of a certain opposition or alternative to the emerging rabbinic current, which, in his view, emerged from the ranks of less educated laymen or converts, moreover at a young age full of inner dilemmas. In interpreting their experiences, he draws conclusions from psychoanalytic premises without the reader having to worry about oversimplification: he combines his methods with a demanding requirement for a free but not arbitrary approach

Czech edition