Angela Kim Harkins

This book examines the collection of prayers known as the Qumran Hodayot (Thanksgiving Hymns). The thesis of this book is that the ritualized reading of reports describing visionary experiences written in the first person “I” had the potential to create within the ancient reader the subjectivity of a visionary which can then predispose him to have a religious experience. The author offers new interdisciplinary insights into meditative ritual reading as a religious practice for transformation in antiquity.

Looking at the Qumran Hodayot through the Lens of Visionary Traditions

Reading with an "I" to the Heavens

Kelley Coblentz Bautch

John C. Endres,  S. J. 

Leading scholars explore the tradition, rooted in Genesis 6, of “the Watchers,” mysterious heavenly beings who became the focus of rich cosmological and theological speculation in early Judaism. Chapters trace the development of the Watchers through the Enoch literature, Jubilees, and other early Jewish and Christian writings.

The Watchers in Jewish and Christian Traditions

John C. Endres

At the origin of the Watchers tradition is the single enigmatic reference in Genesis 6 to the "sons of God" who had intercourse with human women, producing a race of giants upon the earth. That verse sparked a wealth of cosmological and theological speculation in early Judaism. Here leading scholars explore the contours of the Watchers traditions through history, tracing their development through the Enoch literature, Jubilees, and other early Jewish and Christian writings. This volume provides a lucid survey of current knowledge and interpretation of one of the most intriguing theological motifs of the Second Temple period.

Angela Kim Harkins

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