Unveiling the Hidden--Anticipating the Future: Divinatory Practices Among Jews Between Qumran and the Modern Period

In Unveiling the Hidden--Anticipating the Future: Divinatory Practices Among Jews Between Qumran and the Modern Period, Josefina Rodríguez-Arribas and Dorian Gieseler Greenbaum collect ten studies based on primary sources ranging from Qumran to the modern period and covering Europe and the Mediterranean basin. The studies show Jews practising divination (astrology, bibliomancy, physiognomy, dream requests, astral magic, etc.) and implementing the study and practice of the prognostic arts in ways that allowed Jews to make them ＂Jewish,＂ by avoiding any conflict with Jewish law or halakhah. These studies focus on the Jewish components of this divination, providing specific firsthand details about the practices and their practitioners within their cultural and intellectual contexts--as well as their fears, wishes, and anxieties--using ancient scrolls and medieval manuscripts in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Judaeo-Arabic.

Contributors are Michael D. Swartz, Helen R. Jacobus, Alessia Bellusci, Blanca Villuendas Sabaté, Shraga Bar-On, Josefina Rodríguez-Arribas, Amos Geula, Dov Schwartz, Joseph Ziegler, and Charles Burnett.

Josefina Rodríguez-Arribas, (Westfälischen Wilhelms-Universität, Münster) has written articles and chapters on medieval astronomy and divination. She is the author of El cielo de Sefarad: los judíos y los astros (El Almendro 2011) and co-editor of Astrolabes in Medieval Cultures (Brill 2019).

Dorian Gieseler Greenbaum (University of Wales Trinity Saint David) is the author of The Daimon in Hellenistic Astrology: Origins and Influence (Brill 2016) and has written numerous articles on the history, theory and practice of astrology, divination, and ancient medicine.