Books by Angela Kim Harkins
An Embodied Reading of the Shepherd of Hermas: The Book of Visions and its Role in Moral Formation. Equinox Press, 2023
25% discount with the code RELIGION at https://www.equinoxpub.com/home/shepherd-hermas/ The pa... more 25% discount with the code RELIGION at https://www.equinoxpub.com/home/shepherd-hermas/ The paperback is regularly $34; but $25.50 with the discount.
This book focuses on the first section of the Shepherd of Hermas known as the Book of Visions. The book argues that enactive reading can help to generate immersive experiences of Hermas's visions and explain the success of the Shepherd among ancient readers. Cognitive approaches also highlight how modern scholars, who are trained to read apocalypses 'against the grain' in their search for historical or theological information, fail to notice and appreciate the very things that made apocalypses like the Shepherd engaging to a broad range of ancient readers and hearers.
The Shepherd of Hermas is one of the oldest and most well-attested Christian works. Its popularit... more The Shepherd of Hermas is one of the oldest and most well-attested Christian works. Its popularity arguably exceeded that of the canonical Gospels. Many early Christian thinkers regarded the Shepherd as authoritative and cited it in their own writings, even though its status as Scripture was controversial. The far-reaching influence of the Shepherd during the first few centuries is attested in part by the many languages in which it was copied: Latin, Ethiopic, Coptic, Middle Persian, and Georgian. The early dating and wide dissemination of the Shepherd of Hermas offers us access to a period when canonical boundaries were elastic. This volume treats religious experience in the Shepherd, a topic that has received little scholarly attention. It complements a growing body of literature that explores the text from social-historical perspectives. Leading scholars approach it from a variety of interdisciplinary perspectives, including critical literary theory, anthropology, cognitive science, affect theory, gender studies, intersectionality, and text reception. In doing so, they pose fresh questions to one of the most widely read texts in the early church, offering new insights to scholars and students alike.
This volume of updated and revised essays consolidates the work that I have done on religious exp... more This volume of updated and revised essays consolidates the work that I have done on religious experience in ancient Judaism and Christianity. Building on the text-centered work that characterizes much of Second Temple studies, these essays reintegrate ancient Jewish and Christian texts with various aspects of the flesh-and-blood experience of religion. In these essays, I aim to overcome the mind-body dualism that dominates the study of ancient texts by offering ways to imagine the phenomenological experience of these texts by ancient peoples. Available now at Peeters Press
Selected Studies on Deuterocanonical Prayers, 2021
The study of the Septuagint (LXX), specifically the deuterocanonical books, and early Jewish pray... more The study of the Septuagint (LXX), specifically the deuterocanonical books, and early Jewish prayers have gained attention in recent years. The eleven essays in this volume offer various exegetical or theological insights into select prayers known from the deuterocanonical books. Most of the contributions in this volume grew out of a collaboration between the Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature and the Prayer in Antiquity program units of the Society of Biblical Literature in 2018. Contributors include Samuel Balentine, Beate Ego, Matthew Gordley, Bradley Gregory, Jennie Grillo, Noah Hacham, Andrew R. Krause, Joseph Riordan, SJ, Barbara Schmitz, Werner Urbanz, and Lawrence Wills.
This book examines the collection of prayers known as the Qumran Hodayot (Thanksgiving Hymns). Th... more This book examines the collection of prayers known as the Qumran Hodayot (Thanksgiving Hymns). The thesis of this book is that the ritualized reading of reports describing visionary experiences written in the first person "I" functioned to generate within the ancient reader the subjectivity of a visionary which then allowed for the predisposition to have a religious experience. The book offers new interdisciplinary insights into meditative ritual reading as a religious practice for transformation in antiquity.
Out now in paperback in 2018.
A.K. Harkins and M. Popović, "Editorial Note," pp. 247-248; J.H. Newman, "Embodied Techniques: Th... more A.K. Harkins and M. Popović, "Editorial Note," pp. 247-248; J.H. Newman, "Embodied Techniques: The Communal Formation of the Maskil's Self," pp. 249-266; D.K. Falk, "Liturgical Progression and the Experience of Transformation in Prayers from Qumran," pp. 267-284; A.K. Harkins, "The Emotional Re-experiencing of the Hortatory Narratives found in the Admonition of the Damascus Document," pp. 285-307; M.L. Grossman, "Religious Experience and the Discipline of Imagination: Tanya Luhrmann Meets Philo and the Dead Sea Scrolls," pp. 308-324; R.A. Werline, "Ritual, Order and the Construction of an Audience in 1 Enoch 1-36," pp. 325-341; M.E. Stone, "Enoch and the Fall of the Angels: Teaching and Status," pp. 342-357.
Volume Two includes essays on Early Judaism, Studies on Enoch and Jubilees, and the New Testament... more Volume Two includes essays on Early Judaism, Studies on Enoch and Jubilees, and the New Testament and Early Christianity.
Published Articles and Essays by Angela Kim Harkins
The Dead Sea Scrolls: New Insights on Ancient Texts, 2024
"In 'Prayer, the Divine, and the Human Self at Qumran," Angela Kim Harkins observes how Scrolls s... more "In 'Prayer, the Divine, and the Human Self at Qumran," Angela Kim Harkins observes how Scrolls scholars have been overly preoccupied with re-editing and retranslating texts with little attention to how these texts were used by the people of the past and how these prayers functioned in the life of the community. In contrast to early understandings of the people of the Scrolls, which tended to view them in a monolithic way, scholars today consider them with greater complexity. Continuing this trajectory, this chapter draws attention to the embodied aspects of reading by examining the prayers from Qumran with the help of anthropology and cross-cultural understandings of the self. It challenges the purely discursive study of the prayers from the Dead Sea Scrolls--which prioritizes thought or belief--by redirecting attention to how bodily practices generate meaning and experiences." Taken from Alex Jassen and L. Schiffman, "Introduction," The Dead Sea Scrolls: New Insights on Ancient Texts, Palgrave Macmillan, pages 12-13.
(2023) "Retelling Foundational Events in Psalm 106: Experiencing and Remembering the Past." Pages 83-104 in The Power of Psalms in Post-Biblical Judaism: Ritual, Liturgy and Community. Published by Leiden: Brill, 2023
Psalm 106 is grouped with the so-called historical psalms, an identification that goes back to He... more Psalm 106 is grouped with the so-called historical psalms, an identification that goes back to Hermann Gunkel’s 1933 study of Psalms, but which has never been a clearly identified category of psalms. This paper examines the role that emotional and spatial details about foundational events play in how the survey of Israel’s past in Psalm 106 may have been experienced by flesh-and-blood readers in a ritual context. While many studies of the so-called historical psalms speak about the specific events detailed in the psalms—that is to say, what the psalms describe—or even when this psalm may have likely been written—that is to say, who authored or edited the psalm—this essay seeks to examine the ways in which we might imagine how these foundational narratives were experienced by flesh-and-blood readers. Using integrative approaches associated with the cognitive literary studies, specifically ecocriticism, our discussion will focus especially on Psalm 106 and how emerging approaches can assist modern scholars in imagining how this psalm might have been imaginatively visualized and also emotionally reexperienced in ritual contexts.
While we cannot say definitively that apocalypses originate from a specific type of milieu, we ca... more While we cannot say definitively that apocalypses originate from a specific type of milieu, we can explore what gives apocalypses their lasting appeal for readers in subsequent generations. And so, we turn to the question, what is it that apocalypses do to the readers who read them? Our own haste to understand the meaning of these bizarre visions points suggestively to the unsettling experience of reading these visions and our deep-seated desire for resolution. As readers, we might say that it is our own palpable experience of confusion that precisely places us in the shoes of the seer himself who struggles to understand what is happening. We become much like the seer who reports: “I approached one of those who were standing by and began asking him the exact meaning of all this” (Dan 7:16). Perhaps modern readers rush to interpret or to find meaning in these bizarre visions when they should be lingering to savor the visionary experience itself. This essay explores how apocalypses make revelatory experiences accessible with first-hand vividness, what we might call an experience of presence, and proposes that this experiential effect is an over-looked function of these texts.
Jewish Studies on Premodern Periods: A Handbook. Edited by Carl S. Ehrlich and Sara R. Horowitz. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2023
A summary discussion of what was presented at the Symposium in celebration of the Koschitzky Cent... more A summary discussion of what was presented at the Symposium in celebration of the Koschitzky Centre for Jewish Studies at York, Canada.
Studying the Religious Mind: Methodology in the Cognitive Science of Religion, 2022
Experiencing the Shepherd of Hermas. Ekstasis 10. Berlin: De Gruyter Press., 2022
The following discussion of the Shepherd of Hermas is informed by interdisciplinary studies that ... more The following discussion of the Shepherd of Hermas is informed by interdisciplinary studies that apply insights from the cognitive science of visual perception and mental imaging to first-person narratives. The specific approach known as 'enactive reading' describes how the mental imaging of spaces and experiences in narrative resembles the constructive process of ordinary visual perception. We use this model to illustrate how the visualization of the first-person visionary reports attributed to the literary figure known as Hermas participates in the construction of further images and details. This constructive process is one in which the life experiences of the modern reader participate in the narrative logic of the ancient visions. While the apocalypse genre was relatively rare in antiquity, it is a significant one for understanding early Judaism and Christianity because it was a generative literary form that invited readers and hearers of subsequent generations to engage and interpret these texts in new ways, often producing further writings. This essay concludes with some thoughts about how emerging approaches such as enactive reading can enrich how we imagine the generative way the visualization of visions led to the production of other writings.
Experiencing Presence in the Second Temple Period: Revised and Updated Essays, 2022
This essay uses Sara Ahmed's theory of the stickiness of emotions to complicate how Paul's grief ... more This essay uses Sara Ahmed's theory of the stickiness of emotions to complicate how Paul's grief is understood in 2 Corinthians. This is a previously unpublished paper that has been recently published in a collection of essays entitled, Experiencing Presence in the Second Temple Period: Revised and Updated Essays. Leuven: Peeters, 2022.
This essay is a revised version of "I Wrote to You out of Much Affliction and Anguish of Heart": Paul's Emotions in 2 Corinthians," a paper presented at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature (virtual) on November 30, 2020, in a joint session hosted by Prayer in Antiquity and the Bible and Emotions program units.
The beginning pages of this essay may be downloaded here.
The Psalms of Solomon: Texts, Contexts, and Intertexts. Edited by Patrick Pouchelle, G. Anthony Keddie, and Kenneth Atkinson, 2021
This paper presents a discussion of Pss. Sol. 8 with special attention to the ways in which scrip... more This paper presents a discussion of Pss. Sol. 8 with special attention to the ways in which scriptural allusions to foundational events can contribute to an experience of the text in which God’s presence is made perceptible in his absence.
Early Judaism and its Modern Interpreters. Edited by M. Henze and R. Werline., 2020
Pages 353-71 in The Dead Sea Scrolls, Revise and Repeat: New Methods and Perspectives on the Dead Sea Scrolls. Edited by Andrew Krause, Carmen Palmer, Eileen M. Schuller, and John Screnock. SBLEJL. Atlanta: SBL Press, 2020., 2020
This essay proposes that Second Temple narrative prayers in first-person voice seek to make other... more This essay proposes that Second Temple narrative prayers in first-person voice seek to make otherworldly spaces accessible with first-hand vividness, what we might call an experience of presence. ‘Presence’ is a cognitive state in which a reader gains awareness of ‘being’ in a particular narrative world or otherworldly space. The first-person voice is the mechanism by which a reader could gain access to an immersive experience of the narrative world of the prayer, thus experiencing in part the things that the speaker describes with the vividness of presence. This study uses relevant aspects of cognitive literary theory to consider how spaces are described in the Qumran hodayot in such a way as to allow for the phenomenon of immersive reading. How might a reader become lost in a narrative landscape? These questions about how otherworldly spaces achieve the quality of solidity will rely on observations and strategies that literary theorists have made for the writing of fiction and fantasy literature, both of which seek to create compelling narrative worlds for readers. Our discussion will begin by examining elements that encourage the readerly response of ruminating on the text itself, seeking to understand it. The first of these include the effect that bizarre and counterintuitive features of the landscape might have on a reader, leading to a slower reading pace that allows for more cognitive and emotional engagement with the text. Then we will consider how the first-person voice allows a reader to enact the experiences of the hymnist who describes being in a particular narrative place, thereby enscripting the prayer’s embodied experiences for a reader to enact. These embodied experiences will be discussed as either interoceptive experiences (bodily experiences associated with the viscera, including pain, hunger, temperature, and also emotions) or proprioceptive experiences which presume an extended body moving through space (movement, balance, and any kind of kinesthetic action). The first-person narration that is characteristic of prayers provides many details about the interoceptive and proprioceptive experiences of the hymnist, thus giving access to what it might be like to experience the narrative world of the hodayot. The possible effects of reading 1QH 16:5-17:36 on the people who read and transmitted them seeks to take into account the embodied (biological) and cultural contexts of the people of the scrolls, who were living in an ancient Mediterranean culture.
Lived Religion in the Ancient Mediterranean World. Ed by V. Gasparini et al. Berlin: De Gruyter Press., 2020
This essay examines the first four visions in the Book of Visions found in the early Christian wo... more This essay examines the first four visions in the Book of Visions found in the early Christian work known as the Shepherd of Hermas wherein Hermas reports having had a visionary experience happen to him. These are highly mediated and thoroughly edited literary reports that draw upon the emotional contours of foundational narratives and myths. Despite their highly constructed elements, literary features of the visionary reports can nevertheless give some insight into how flesh and blood readers may have experienced the reading or hearing of these texts. With the help of the integrative approaches associated with the cognitive literary theory, this essay considers how the process of imagining the scenes in the Book of Visions participates in the formation of the self.
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Books by Angela Kim Harkins
This book focuses on the first section of the Shepherd of Hermas known as the Book of Visions. The book argues that enactive reading can help to generate immersive experiences of Hermas's visions and explain the success of the Shepherd among ancient readers. Cognitive approaches also highlight how modern scholars, who are trained to read apocalypses 'against the grain' in their search for historical or theological information, fail to notice and appreciate the very things that made apocalypses like the Shepherd engaging to a broad range of ancient readers and hearers.
Out now in paperback in 2018.
Published Articles and Essays by Angela Kim Harkins
This essay is a revised version of "I Wrote to You out of Much Affliction and Anguish of Heart": Paul's Emotions in 2 Corinthians," a paper presented at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature (virtual) on November 30, 2020, in a joint session hosted by Prayer in Antiquity and the Bible and Emotions program units.
The beginning pages of this essay may be downloaded here.
This book focuses on the first section of the Shepherd of Hermas known as the Book of Visions. The book argues that enactive reading can help to generate immersive experiences of Hermas's visions and explain the success of the Shepherd among ancient readers. Cognitive approaches also highlight how modern scholars, who are trained to read apocalypses 'against the grain' in their search for historical or theological information, fail to notice and appreciate the very things that made apocalypses like the Shepherd engaging to a broad range of ancient readers and hearers.
Out now in paperback in 2018.
This essay is a revised version of "I Wrote to You out of Much Affliction and Anguish of Heart": Paul's Emotions in 2 Corinthians," a paper presented at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature (virtual) on November 30, 2020, in a joint session hosted by Prayer in Antiquity and the Bible and Emotions program units.
The beginning pages of this essay may be downloaded here.
Cave 1 hodayot did not enjoy in antiquity. This study highlights some curious aspects of the unprovenanced Cave 1 hodayot, especially as they pertain to our understanding of the literary collection known popularly as the first group of Community Hymns (= CH I), and offers a possible scenario to account for the material state of the hodayot
at the time of its abandonment.