The Apocalypse of the Birds - (Edinburgh Studies in Religion in Antiquity) by Elena L Dugan

About the Book

Identifies and contextualises a new work within the Animal Apocalypse, dated to the dawn of the First Jewish Revolt.

Book Synopsis

This book identifies a new apocalyptic work--the Apocalypse of the Birds--contained in the Animal Apocalypse (1 Enoch 85-90), and argues that it is born of the chaotic Jewish-Christian world of the first-century CE. Through close analysis of texts and manuscripts in Ge'ez, Greek, Aramaic, and Hebrew, alongside historical and numismatic evidence, the book situates the Apocalypse of the Birds alongside literature and historiography of the first-century CE. It argues that the Apocalypse of the Birds belongs to the heady early days of the First Jewish Revolt, and represents crucial evidence for the early optimism of the revolutionaries, the dynamic and progressive evolution of the Animal Apocalyptic tradition, and the blurred and porous boundaries between Jew and Jesus-follower in the first-century CE.

Review Quotes

Dugan's argument is rigorous, nuanced, judicious, and admirably reflexive throughout. Her breadth of expertise in different materials, languages, corpora, and periods make this a richly complex and original study. [...] This book should be required reading for scholars and advanced students of Jewish and Christian literature and will also be of interest to specialists in ancient textual practices, book history, and provincial responses to Roman imperialism. I look forward to the creative new conversations it will stimulate about textual transmission across the boundaries of periods, languages, and religious traditions.--Tony Keddie, University of Texas at Austin "BMCR"

This learned and ingenious monograph raises important methodological questions for the study of the Pseudepigrapha that will define the study of this corpus of ancient writings in the coming generation.--John J. Collins, Yale University