The Emergence of Pseudonymous Attribution in Heikhalot Literature: Empirical Evidence from the Jewish "Magical" Corpora

This paper provides empirical evidence for dating the emergence of Heikhalot literature as a distinct and recognizable class of texts to the early Islamic/geonic period (c. 650-950 C. E.).1 Heikhalot literature forms the earliest ordered and extensive collection of Jewish ascent and adjurational sources from Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages.2 Although scholars increasingly take Heikhalot literature into consideration when assessing the diversity and scope of late antique Judaism,3 this