Divine Scapegoats: Demonic Mimesis in Early Jewish Mysticism

Explores the paradoxical symmetry between the divine and demonic in early Jewish mystical texts.

Divine Scapegoats is a wide-ranging exploration of the parallels between the heavenly and the demonic in early Jewish apocalyptical accounts. In these materials, antagonists often mirror features of angelic figures, and even those of the Deity himself, an inverse correspondence that implies a belief that the demonic realm is maintained by imitating divine reality. Andrei A. Orlov examines the sac...