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Chapter 27 - Magic

from Part III - Spiritual and Intellectual History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 August 2021

Phillip I. Lieberman
Affiliation:
Vanderbilt University, Tennessee
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Summary

“Magic” is a notoriously difficult term whose exact meaning tends to change from one scholarly treatment to the next. For the purpose of the current survey, magic is the attempt to achieve concrete results in the real world through actions that seek to harness or influence supernatural forces. However, as much of Judaism easily falls under such a definition, in the following survey we shall focus especially on practices that remained outside the framework of “normative Judaism” as embedded in its standard halakhic codes and prayer books.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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References

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