Spirit Possession in the Hebrew Bible

Rev. Dr. Reed Carlson specializes in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament and the literature of Second Temple Judaism—a diverse body of writings that includes the Dead Sea Scrolls, early Jewish Pseudepigrapha, and the deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament (Apocrypha). His current research focuses on accounts of spirits and ecstatic religious experiences in biblical and Second Temple Jewish literature—especially as they relate to anthropological and ethnographic studies of possession, trance, and other similar practices in the Global South and its diasporas. Join us for a fascinating and eye-opening exploration with Dr. Yeshaya Gruber of the Israel Bible Center, as Dr. Carlson answers questions about his recently published book Unfamiliar Selves in the Hebrew Bible: Possession and Other Spirit Phenomena (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2022).