Demons, Angels, and Writing in Ancient Judaism

Annette Yoshiko Reed is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Religious Studies and Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University. A scholar of Judaism and Christianity, she focuses on questions of identity and literary practice across Second Temple Judaism and Late Antiquity. Her research looks to non-canonical and other neglected sources to open new perspectives on ancient Jews and Christians. Her books include Fallen Angels and the History of Judaism and Christianity (Cambridge, 2005) and Jewish-Christianity and the History of Judaism (2018), as well as a number of edited volumes.

• 1. Multiplicity, monotheism, and memory in Ancient Israel; 2. Rethinking scribalism and change in Second Temple Judaism; 3. Writing angels, astronomy, and Aramaic in the early Hellenistic age; 4. Textualizing demonology as Jewish knowledge and scribal expertise; 5. Rewriting angels, demons, and the ancestral archive of Jewish knowledge.

'By far the most richly textured and lucid explanation of demonology and angelology I have ever seen. Demons, Angels, and Writing is a consummate work of historical scholarship, capturing the imaginative worlds of ancient Jewish scribes with eloquence and insight. And in taking demons, angels, and the multiplicity of divine forces seriously in ancient religious experience, Reed makes an important contribution to the history of religions more generally.' David Frankfurter, William Goodwin Aurelio Chair of the Appreciation of Scripture, Boston University