Armenian Apocrypha Relating to Angels and Biblical Heroes

Michael E. Stone’s latest book explores how the vivid and creative Armenian spiritual tradition shaped biblical stories to serve new needs. Stone edits and provides introductions, translations, and notes for Armenian manuscript texts relevant to the development and growth of biblical themes and subjects. Most of the texts translated are from previously unpublished manuscript witnesses. This fascinating corpus of texts about angels and biblical heroes includes stories of Joseph and Jonah, Nathan the prophet, and Asaph the psalmist. In addition, Stone has included documents illustrating particular points of biblical stories. This work refects on not only how the Bible was interpreted in medieval times but
also how biblical and Second Temple period apocryphal traditions from antiquity were reshaped and functioned in the communities that nurtured them. Readers and scholars will be fascinated by the dynamic and responsive forms that such traditions exhibit in Armenian culture.