On Neglected Hebrew Versions of Myths of the Two Fallen Angels

The present study presents and discusses two Hebrew versions of the myth of fallen angels previously unknown to modern scholarship. Their protagonists are Shemhaza’el and ‘Azza, and the mythical drama whose actors they are takes place at the beginning of the process of creation. Those versions are p...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Idel, Mosheh 1947- (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Ruhr-Universität Bochum 2022
In: Entangled Religions
Year: 2022, Volume: 13, Issue: 6
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains:B Haggadah / Midrash / Fall of the angels / Text history / Ashkenazim
IxTheo Classification:AG Religious life; material religion
BH Judaism
HB Old Testament
KBA Western Europe
NBH Angelology; demonology
TB Antiquity
TE Middle Ages
Further subjects:B Shemhaza’el
B fallen angels
B Bahya ben Asher Halewah
B Ashkenazi cultural center
B Shlomo Simhah
B stream of traditions
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Description
Summary:The present study presents and discusses two Hebrew versions of the myth of fallen angels previously unknown to modern scholarship. Their protagonists are Shemhaza’el and ‘Azza, and the mythical drama whose actors they are takes place at the beginning of the process of creation. Those versions are preserved in two late thirteenth-century books, one written in Northern France and the other in Catalunia. Those versions are quoted as ’Aggadah and, respectively, as Midrash; they do not depend on each other but reflect an earlier Rabbinic myth that developed in two different directions. The working hypothesis of this article assumes that these versions preserved material that entered the Ashkenazi (Germano-French) center of Jewish culture as part of a stream of traditions which also preserved other, known and unknown, versions of the myth of the fallen angels. The above results, together with other historical reconsiderations mentioned in this study, call into question and invite a profound revision of recent theories of "back borrowing" from Muslim and Christian sources of material concerning this myth among most Jewish authors.
ISSN:2363-6696
Contains:Enthalten in: Entangled Religions
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.46586/er.13.2022.9518