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Document Details : Title: Astrology and the Zodiac in Sefer Hekhalot Subtitle: Social and Ideological Functions? Author(s): ARBEL, Daphna Journal: ARAM Periodical Volume: 24 Date: 2012 Pages: 443-456 DOI: 10.2143/ARAM.24.0.3009284 Abstract : With a focus on Sefer Hekahlot (or 3 Enoch) of the Hekhalot literature from late antiquity, I will advance in this paper three interrelated suggestions. First, I will identify and examine how Sefer Hekahlot includes both explicit and implicit references to an astrological worldview and the zodiac. Second, I will situate these references in the wider intellectual landscape of antiquity/late antiquity, and the common and idiosyncratic use of astrological worldview and (literary and material) representations of the Zodiac in Jewish and non-Jewish sources. Third, rather than attempting to assign precise meanings to the astrological and zodiacal references in Sefer Hekahlot, I will explore the plausibility that these references may have been employed as discursive elements in the construction of what made authority superior and legitimate. |
