Reviews for Sacred History and Sacred Texts: A Symposium in Honour of A. S. van der Woude

The average rating for Sacred History and Sacred Texts: A Symposium in Honour of A. S. van der Woude based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2016-05-03 00:00:00 Monique Hazzard Idel does good work revising some of the axioms of the subject of Messianism in the field of Jewish Mysticism that have dominated since the day of Scholem, the largest being that 'Kabbalah/Hasidism is the neutralization of messianism'. Idel's point, which is a fine one and well taken, is that yes, it can be seen as a neutralization if, and only if messianism implicitly means apocalypticism, which opines Idel, it shouldn't Scholem notwithstanding. I like the direction Idel takes to bridge Messianism and Mysticism, namely the internal, personal, private mystical experience as a soteriological, messianic experience (at least in foretaste) but I feel like he doesn't do far enough in following the mystics own thought which links the personal salvation with global salvation. Shame. If you like books like this you'll love my project:

Review # 2 was written on 2009-05-17 00:00:00 Starkiesha Coleman This author rambles, and spends a lot of time contrasting "his opinion" against other authors, especially Gershom Scholem.