Hekhalot literature

Jewish mysticism
History of Jewish mysticism
Forms Prophets 800–400s BCE Apocalyptic literature 300–100 BCE Pardes Rabbinic esotericism c. 1 – 200 CE Merkabah-Hekhalot c. 100 BCE – 1000 CE Practical Kabbalah early CE–modernity Sefer Yetzirah 200–600 CE Ashkenazi Hasidim c. 1150 – 1250 CE Medieval Kabbalah Ecstatic Kabbalah c. 1175 – 1500s CE Zohar 1280s–1400s CE Cordoverian Kabbalah 1500s CE Lurianic Kabbalah 1570 CE – today Sabbatean sects 1665 – c. 1800 CE Hasidism Hasidic schools 1730s CE – today Academic study c. 1920s – today
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The Hekhalot literature (sometimes transliterated Heichalot) from the Hebrew word for "Palaces", relating to visions of ascents into heavenly palaces. The genre overlaps with Merkabah or "Chariot" literature, concerning Ezekiel's chariot, so the two are sometimes referred to together as "Books of the Palaces and the Chariot" (ספרות ההיכלות והמרכבה‎). The Hekhalot literature is a genre of Jewish esoteric and revelatory texts produced some time between late antiquity – some believe from Talmudic times or earlier – to the Early Middle Ages.

Many motifs of later Kabbalah are based on the Hekhalot texts, and the Hekhalot literature itself is based upon earlier sources, including traditions about heavenly ascents of Enoch found among the Dead Sea scrolls and the Hebrew Bible pseudepigrapha.^[1] Hekhalot itself has many pseudepigraphic texts.^[2]