Hekhalot: how to compare stories of ascent to heaven
Related manuscripts tell stories of heavenly ascent in different ways. Comparison reveals what they share without turning them into one book.
What comparing manuscripts reveals
Peter Schäfer and collaborators’ Synopse zur Hekhalot-Literatur provides an edition for comparing textual witnesses. The unit of comparison is a passage in a particular witness. Mohr Siebeck ↗
A family is not a single text
Hekhalot literature and 3 Enoch overlap with a wider field of traditions. Identify the composition or witness being discussed before assigning an origin or drawing a lineage. Mohr Siebeck ↗
Follow transmission carefully
Track additions, omissions, and ordering across witnesses. Repeated imagery may be evidence of a shared tradition, but a direct relationship needs a more specific argument. Mohr Siebeck ↗