Dybbuk and Maggid: Two Cultural Patterned of Altered Consciousness in Judaism

For many years scholars of Judaism were reluctant to employ the analytic tools distilled in anthropology for studying Jewish culture. One reason for this reluctance was that the classical ethnographic field, consisting of a small-scale tribal society with no written tradition, did not appear pertine...

Full description

Saved in:  
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Bilu, Yoram (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Check availability: HBZ Gateway
Journals Online & Print:
Drawer...
Fernleihe:Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste
Published: University of Pennsylvania Press 1996
In: AJS review
Year: 1996, Volume: 21, Issue: 2, Pages: 341-366
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Description
Summary:For many years scholars of Judaism were reluctant to employ the analytic tools distilled in anthropology for studying Jewish culture. One reason for this reluctance was that the classical ethnographic field, consisting of a small-scale tribal society with no written tradition, did not appear pertinent to the study of the text-informed “great tradition“ of Judaism. In addition, the notion of comparative research implicit in most anthropological studies appeared dubious to many scholars of Judaism, who were alarmed by the sweeping, methodologically unfounded comparisons evident in the treatment of biblical material by such precursors of modern anthropology as Robertson Smith and Frazer.1 This methodological consideration was augmented by an emotional unwillingness to equate the “primitive’ religious systems of “savage’ societies with concepts and rituals pertaining to the oldest monotheistic religion.
ISSN:1475-4541
Contains:Enthalten in: Association for Jewish Studies, AJS review
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1017/S0364009400008552