Discover how the ancient Egyptians controlled their immortal destiny! This book, edited by Foy Scalf, explores what the Book of the Dead was believed to do, how it worked, how it was made, and what happened to it.

Proceedings of meetings of the Prophetic Texts and Their Ancient Contexts Group of the Society of Biblical Literature held in 2007 in Washington, D.C. and in 2008 in Boston, Mass.

In antiquity, the twelve books of the Minor Prophets were transmitted as a single volume known as the Book of the Twelve. This 1994 Duke dissertation uses manuscript discoveries from the Judean Desert and a fresh re-appraisal of the Greek translation of the Minor Prophets to argue for the existence of three versions of the Book of the Twelve in ancient Judaism. The differences between these versions illustrate the role that ancient biblical interpretation played in the shaping of the canonical prophetic literature. Among its other contributions, the book marshalls textual evidence for the integrity and chronological priority of the Hebrew text of the Septuagint Minor Prophets as compared to the Masoretic textual tradition. -- Back Cover.

Excerpt from Dissertations on the Opening of the Sealed Book: Illustrating the Prophetic Signs Used in Daniel and the Revelation The title of the book, The Revelation of Jesus Christ, occupy ing the first three verses, has been already noticed, and the purpose for which this Revelation was given; but the manner in which it was shown to John, to be by him communicated to his fellow-servants, is particularly expressed, and should also be attended to - it was signified, displayed by? Signs. It is only by carefully considering these signs, and comparing them with the signs, types, and figures made use of by the prophets (to whose word we are exhorted to take heed, as we would do unto a light shining before us in a dark place), that we can be blessed, as were the faithful in Israel, while they meditated on the wonders of that law which was the bringer in of a better hope; and, like them, understanding the loving kindness of the Lord, be led to look for the incorruptible inheritance. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Explores the paradoxical symmetry between the divine and demonic in early Jewish mystical texts. Divine Scapegoats is a wide-ranging exploration of the parallels between the heavenly and the demonic in early Jewish apocalyptical accounts. In these materials, antagonists often mirror features of angelic figures, and even those of the Deity himself, an inverse correspondence that implies a belief that the demonic realm is maintained by imitating divine reality. Andrei A. Orlov examines the sacerdotal, messianic, and creational aspects of this mimetic imagery, focusing primarily on two texts from the Slavonic pseudepigrapha: 2 Enoch and the Apocalypse of Abraham. These two works are part of a very special cluster of Jewish apocalyptic texts that exhibit features not only of the apocalyptic worldview but also of the symbolic universe of early Jewish mysticism. The Yom Kippur ritual in the Apocalypse of Abraham, the divine light and darkness of 2 Enoch, and the similarity of mimetic motifs to later developments in the Zohar are of particular importance in Orlov’s consideration.