Three Temples: On the Emergence of Jewish Mysticism in Late Antiquity, The

By Elior, Rachel and David Louvish (Trans.)
Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2005, Paperback, 301 pp., ISBN: 1904113338, $24.95

Elior (Jewish philosophy and Jewish mystical thought, Hebrew U. of Jerusalem) argues that the early Jewish mystical literature associated with the Merkavah, the divine Chariot Throne, was composed in three distinct but interrelated stages.

She claims that these were linked to three destroyed or desecrated temples and three priestly classes that were barred from their sacral duties. She also points out an uninterrupted line
between that and related literature of the last centuries BCE to that of the first centuries CE.

The Hebrew original Mikdash u-merkavah, kohanim u-mal'akhim, hekhal ve-hekhalot ba-mistikah ha-Yehudit ha-kedumah was published in 2002.