The Name of God and the Angel of the Lord: Samaritan and Jewish Concepts of Intermediation and the Origin...

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Jarl E. Fossum

The Name of God and the Angel of the Lord

Samaritan and Jewish Concepts of Intermediation and the Origin of Gnosticism

Jarl E. Fossum

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English

Baylor University Press
15 July 2017

Religion & beliefs; History of religion; Theology

Series: Library of Early Christology

The relationship among Judaism, Gnosticism, and Christianity perpetually eludes easy description. While it is clear that by the second and third centuries of the Common Era these three religious groups worked hard to distinguish themselves from each other, it is also true that the three religious traditions share common religious perspectives.

Jarl Fossum, in The Name of God and the Angel of the Lord, examines this common heritage by proposing that the emergence of an anticosmic gnostic demiurge was not simply Gnosticism's critique of the Jewish God or a metaphysical antisemitism. The figure of the gnostic demiurge arose from Judaism itself.

Fossum demonstrates that the first gnostic versions of the demiurge constituted a subordinated dualism. Fossum then turns to Judaism, in particular Samaritanism's portrayal of a principal angel. In distinction from non-Samaritan Jewish examples - where the Angel of the Lord bears the Divine Name but is not a demiurge, or examples where the Divine Name is said to be the instrument of creation but is not an angel or personal being - Fossum discovers a figure who bore God's name, was distinct from God, and was God's instrument for creation. Only in Samaritan texts is God's vice-regent personalized, angelic, demiurgic, and the bearer of God's name.

In the end, The Name of God and the Angel of the Lord reveals that not all gnostic speculation was anti-Jewish and, indeed, emerging gnostic and Christian traditions borrowed as much from Judaism as they criticized and rejected.

By: Jarl E. Fossum
Imprint: Baylor University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm,
Weight: 650g
ISBN: 9781481307932
ISBN 10: 1481307932
Series: Library of Early Christology
Pages: 391
Publication Date: 15 July 2017
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Jarl E. Fossum (Ph.D., University of Utrecht) is retired Professor of New Testament at the University of Michigan.

Reviews for The Name of God and the Angel of the Lord: Samaritan and Jewish Concepts of Intermediation and the Origin of Gnosticism

One of the most important books on Gnosticism to appear after the complete publication of the Nag Hammadi texts. Ioan Petru Culianu, History of Religions, reviewing a previous edition or volume Fossum rightly underscores the important role that exegetical concernsmay have played in the emergence of gnostic demiurgic myths. Michael A. Williams, Journal of Biblical Literature, reviewing a previous edition or volume