Through a Speculum That Shines: Vision and Imagination in Medieval Jewish Mysticism

(Paperback)

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Description

Offering a treatment of visionary experience in some of the main texts of Jewish mysticism, this book reveals the visual nature of religious experience in Jewish spirituality from antiquity through the late Middle Ages. It shows how Jewish mystics preserved the invisible transcendence of God without doing away with the visual dimension of belief.

Reviews

Winner of the 1995 Sarah H. and Julius Kushner Award, National Jewish Book Council One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 1995 Winner of the 1994 Excellence in Book Publishing Award, American Academy of Religion "Massive, magisterial... Wolfson has amassed an impressive array of texts to establish the foundational importance of seeing God for Jewish mysticism ... and his book formulates many questions that will undoubtedly occupy subsequent investigators as they grapple with the significance of its findings... This book comprises a manifold contribution to our appreciation of Jewish mysticism and Jewish intellectual history in the Middle Ages."--Jeremy Cohen, American Historical Review "Energy and excitement ... burst forth from page after page of this remarkably wide-ranging yet tightly argued work... Wolfson's work is scholarship in the grand tradition--sweeping in scope and references, precise in analysis and argumentation."--Everett Gendler, Theological Studies "A learned, authoritative and scrupulously documented study of visionary experiences among medieval Jewish prophets and mystics."--Earle J. Coleman, Menorah Review "Arguing that kabalistic experience is first and foremost a visual rather than an aural experience ... Wolfson traces the subject in rich detail, from its biblical origins through the mystical sources of the talmudic and posttalmudic era... With the publication of this major study, Wolfson has confirmed his position as one of the leading students of medieval Jewish mysticism."--Choice

Author Bio

Elliot R. Wolfson is the Abraham Lieberman Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University, and Director of Religious Studies. He is the author of several books on the history of Jewish mysticism, including Along the Path: Studies in Kabbalistic Myth, Symbolism, and Hermeneutics and Circle in the Square: Studies in the Use of Gender in Kabbalistic Symbolism.