Description: Explores the paradoxical symmetry between the divine and demonic in early Jewish mystical texts.
Brief description: Andrei A. Orlov is Professor of Judaism and Christianity in Antiquity at Marquette University. His previous books include The Greatest Mirror: Heavenly Counterparts in the Jewish Pseudepigrapha; Divine Scapegoats: Demonic Mimesis in Early Jewish Mysticism; Dark Mirrors: Azazel and Satanael in Early Jewish Demonology; and Demons of Change: Antagonism and Apotheosis in Jewish and Christian Apocalypticism, all published by SUNY Press.
Review Quotes:
"...Divine Scapegoats ... injects new insights into our understanding of the early foundations of the Jewish mystical tradition ... [and] is a valuable contribution to Sephardic studies. With its bibliography and very extensive notes it should find a place in academic libraries." -- AJL Reviews
"An impressively productive scholar, Orlov is widely regarded as one of the foremost experts in the so-called Slavonic pseudepigrapha, a group of Jewish apocalyptic texts from the Second Temple Period whose origins and transmission history is especially obscure. Divine Scapegoats demonstrates once more Orlov's mastery of these texts." -- H-Net Reviews (H-Judaic)