Merkavahmystikken mellem tradition og innovation

Abstract

The aim of this article is to show how early Jewish mystics made a new interpretation of the tradition, i.e. the theology of their time and by doing so, they went far off their orthodox tradition. For many years the questions of when and from where did the Merkavah mysticism develop have been a subject of discussion among researchers in Rabbinic Judaism. In the main section of the article I focus on two of the so-called makroforms, i.e. longer rather homogenous passages of texts, which are Hekhalot Zutarti and Ma’aseh Merkavah. In those texts we find a lot of magical statements and if we compare this to the traditional view of God at that time (about 200–600 C.E.), we can hardly deny that at least some of the mystics moved behind the limit of orthodoxy, or should we say, the theology of tradition. But that does not necessarily force us to give up the view that at least some of the mystics could have belonged to rabbinic circles – this is still an open question.