Reading with an "I" to the Heavens: Looking at the Qumran Hodayot Through the Lens of Visionary Traditions

by Angela Kim Harkins

This book examines the collection of prayers known as the Qumran Hodayot (Thanksgiving Hymns). 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. The author offers new interdisciplinary insights into meditative ritual reading as a religious practice for transformation in antiquity.

324 pages, Hardcover

First published June 15, 2012