Merkabah mysticism

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Merkabah mysticism (Heb., ‘Chariot’ mysticism). Jewish speculations on God's throne. Later Jewish mystics speculated on the prophet Ezekiel's vision of God's chariot, and such study was recognized to have particular dangers to untutored minds. Johanan ben Zakkai was a practitioner of merkabah mysticism, and early accounts of his experience (e.g. in a Cairo Genizah fragment) so closely resemble the accounts of Saul/Paul's Damascus road experience (with the obvious exception of the perception of Jesus) that it seems virtually certain that Saul had been an adept also. See also HEKHALOT AND MERKABAH.

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Merkabah mysticism

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