Unveiling the Hidden—Anticipating the Future: Divinatory Practices Among Jews Between Qumran and the Modern Period
Josefina Rodríguez-Arribas and Dorian Gieseler Greenbaum
In Unveiling the Hidden—Anticipating the Future: Divinatory Practices Among Jews Between Qumran and the Modern Period, Josefina Rodríguez-Arribas and Dorian Gieseler Greenbaum collect ten studies based on primary sources ranging from Qumran to the modern period and covering Europe and the Mediterranean basin. The studies show Jews practising divination (astrology, bibliomancy, physiognomy, dream requests, astral magic, etc.) and implementing the study and practice of the prognostic arts in ways that allowed Jews to make them “Jewish,” by avoiding any conflict with Jewish law or halakhah. These studies focus on the Jewish components of this divination, providing specific firsthand details about the practices and their practitioners within their cultural and intellectual contexts—as well as their fears, wishes, and anxieties—using ancient scrolls and medieval manuscripts in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Judaeo-Arabic.
Dr. Josefina Rodríguez-Arribas is Professor of History of Exact Sciences at the Institute for the History of Science of the Polish Academy of Sciences, and she has been a research fellow in the USA, Israel, the UK, and Germany. The core of her research is the intellectual history of Jews with a focus on medieval scientific manuscripts, science, and technology (including astronomical instruments and divination).
Dr Dorian Gieseler Greenbaum is a Permanent Tutor at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David. She is an expert in the history, theory, philosophy, and practice of ancient astrology, focusing on the Mediterranean region from the Hellenistic and Ptolemaic periods through Late Antiquity, but also including the European Middle Ages and Renaissance.
Rodríguez-Arribas, Josefina, and Dorian Gieseler Greenbaum, eds. Unveiling the Hidden—Anticipating the Future: Divinatory Practices Among Jews Between Qumran and the Modern Period. Leiden: Brill, 2021) doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004445703
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