Are there angels and demons in Judaism?
Judaism in Five Minutes - Sarah Imhoff
Sara Ronis [+]
St Mary's University, Texas
Sara Ronis is associate professor of Theology at St. Mary’s University, Texas. She holds a Ph.D. in ancient Judaism specializing in the Talmud from Yale University and a B.A. in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies from Brandeis University. Her research interests include rabbinic subjectivity and definitions of personhood, constructions of gender and authority in rabbinic literature, and rabbinic imaginings of and encounters with the other in late antiquity. She is the author of Demons in the Details: Demonic Discourse and Rabbinic Culture in Late Antique Babylonia (University of California Press 2022).
Description
Though Judaism is a monotheistic religion, in many times and places, Jewish thinkers have also described a robust world of intermediary beings who are more powerful than humans but not gods themselves—angels, demons, and more. This chapter traces the history of this belief from the Hebrew Bible through the Second Temple Period, rabbinic literature, medieval thought, Enlightenment responses, and finally, the modern world. The chapter demonstrates that the answers to the question “Do Jews believe in angels and demons?” are as diverse as Jews themselves.