In this book, Andrei A. Orlov examines the imagery of "inclination" or yetzer found in the Apocalypse of Abraham. He argues that the text operates with several yetzer anthropologies, some of which are reminiscent of early biblical models, while others are similar to later rabbinic notions. Although the author focuses on the traditions found in the Apocalypse of Abraham, he also treats the evolution of the yetzer symbolism in its full historical and interpretive complexity through a broad variety of Jewish and Christian sources, from the creational narratives of the Hebrew Bible to later rabbinic testimonies. He further argues that a close analysis of the yetzer anthropologies found in the Apocalypse of Abraham challenges previous scholarly hypotheses that yetzer was only sexualized and gendered for the first time in post-Amoraic sources.

This book examines the multiple contexts for the pseudepigraphal Apocalypse of Abraham, including the ancient Jewish milieu in which it was originally written and its medieval Christian Slavic setting.

The annual Review of Biblical Literature presents a selection of reviews of the most recent books in biblical studies and related fields, including topical monographs, multi-author volumes, reference works, commentaries, and dictionaries. RBL reviews German, French, Italian, and English books and offers reviews in those languages.

This volume sheds light on how Jews and Christians in Antiquity understood the nature and characteristics of demons. The contributions cover a wide range of corpora and explore aspects of continuity and change as ideas flowed between groups and cultures.

Antagonistic imagery has a striking presence in apocalyptic writings of Second Temple Judaism and early Christianity. In these visionary accounts, the role of the divine warrior fighting against demonic forces is often taken by a human adept, who becomes exalted and glorified as a result of his encounter with otherworldly antagonists, serving as a prerequisite for his final apotheosis. Demons of Change examines the meaning of these interactions for the transformations of the hero and antihero of early Jewish and Christian apocalyptic accounts. Andrei A. Orlov traces the roots of this trope to ancient Near Eastern traditions, paying special attention to the significance of conflict in the adept's ascent and apotheosis and to the formative value of these developments for Jewish and Christian martyrological accounts. This antagonistic tension plays a critical role both for the exaltation of the protagonist and for the demotion of his opponent. Orlov treats the motif of the hero's apotheosis in the midst of conflict in its full historical and interpretive complexity using a broad variety of Jewish sources, from the creational narratives of the Hebrew Bible to later Jewish mystical testimonies.

Considered by many to be 'the last important product of the Apocalyptic movement', The Apocalypse of Abraham is an apocryphon, a work that belongs to a body of prophetic Abrahamic literature flourishing about the time of Christ. The text details the Destruction of the Temple and thus was written after 70 AD. It is considered part of the Apocalyptic literature but not regarded as authoritative scripture.

"I am not a particularly Jewish thinker," said Emmanuel Levinas, "I am just a thinker." This book argues against the idea, affirmed by Levinas himself, that Totality and Infinity and Otherwise Than Being separate philosophy from Judaism. By reading Levinas's philosophical works through the prism of Judaic texts and ideas, Michael Fagenblat argues that what Levinas called "ethics" is as much a hermeneutical product wrought from the Judaic heritage as a series of phenomenological observations. Decoding the Levinas's philosophy of Judaism within a Heideggerian and Pauline framework, Fagenblat uses biblical, rabbinic, and Maimonidean texts to provide sustained interpretations of the philosopher's work. Ultimately he calls for a reconsideration of the relation between tradition and philosophy, and of the meaning of faith after the death of epistemology.