Early Israel offers the most sweeping reinterpretation of the Pentateuch since the nineteenth-century Documentary Hypothesis. Engaging a dozen-plus modern academic disciplines--from anthropology, biblical studies, Egyptology and semiotics, to linguistics, cognitive poetics and consciousness studies; from religious studies, Jewish studies, psychoanalysis and literary criticism, to mysticism studies, cognitive psychology, phenomenology and philosophy of mind--it wrests from the Pentateuch an outline of the heretofore undiscovered ancient Israelite mystical-initiatory tradition of the First Temple priests. The book effectively launches a new research area: Pentateuchal esoteric mysticism, akin to a "center" or "organizing principle" discussed in biblical theology. The recovered priestly system is discordant vis-à-vis the much-later rabbinical project. This volume appeals to a diverse academic community, from Biblical and Jewish studies to literary studies, religious studies, anthropology, and consciousness studies.
