Reading with an I to the Heavens

This book examines the collection of prayers known as the Qumran Hodayot (= Thanksgiving Hymns) in light of ancient visionary traditions, new developments in neuropsychology, and post-structuralist understandings of the embodied subject. The thesis of this book is that the ritualized reading of reports describing visionary experiences written in the first person "I" had the potential to create within the ancient reader the subjectivity of a visionary which can then predispose him to have a religious experience. This study examines how references to the body and the strategic arousal of emotions could have functioned within a practice of performative reading to engender a religious experience of ascent. In so doing, this book offers new interdisciplinary insights into meditative ritual reading as a religious practice for transformation in antiquity.

Author: Angela Kim Harkins
Publisher: de Gruyter
Published: 06/11/2018
Pages: 334
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.14lbs
Size: 9.21h x 6.14w x 0.75d
ISBN13: 9783110610857
ISBN10: 311061085X
BISAC Categories:
- Religion | Christian Rituals & Practice | General
- Religion | Biblical Criticism & Interpretation | Old Testament
- Religion | Biblical Criticism & Interpretation | New Testament

About the Author

Angela Kim Harkins, Marie Curie International Incoming Fellow, University of Birmingham, UK.