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By Magnus Arvid Boes Lorenzen

In my work for the RADHEART-project, titled Mirrors of the Heart: Ezekiel Traditions and Radical Religion in Second Temple Judaism, I am looking into the Masoretic text of Ezekiel, along other Ezekiel traditions such as fragments from Qumran and Ezekiel in the Septuagint. My work explores the character of Ezekiel as a model for individual strong commitment, and as a pull-factor towards radical religion in the late Second Temple period.

Research Questions:

• Does the book of Ezekiel, and Ezekiel-traditions more widely express radical habits of the heart? If so, how are they expressed? How are they cultivated? 
• What is the role of embodied and emotional expressions in ideals of strong individual commitment in Ezekiel-traditions? And how do these relate to Ezekiel’s visions? 
• How is the self cultivated within ideals of strong individual commitment in Ezekiel traditions? 
• Are Ezekiel-traditions, in their literary and traditional context, expressions of radical religion, both in emic and etic terms?
• Do we find that the models of strong commitment expressed in Ezekiel are received and used in other texts or amongst Judean communities in the Second Temple period? 
• Finally, can we say anything about how the text of Ezekiel, particularly the parts dealing with Ezekiel's mission and visions of punishment and redemption, would have affected its ancient readers/receivers?

With this research-project, I hypothesize and hope to show that strong individual commitment and self-cultivation are expressed and modelled in the character of Ezekiel, and that Ezekiel’s prophetic model is based on embodiment and emotion. Further that the Masoretic Text employs the heart as the centre of self and agency. In connection to this, also that Ezekiel traditions shift both the definition of “Israel” as well as responsibility for punishment and redemption away from the collective towards the human individual.

In connection hereto that Ezekiel as a role model for strong individual commitment became a point of orientation that Jewish groups and traditions connected to and used to contest contemporary political-religious realities and find a sense of legitimacy and identity in the late Second Temple period. 

Finally, I propose that MT Ezekiel habours important elements of apocalyptic discourse, and that while it contains lots of violent imagery and intensely evocative language is rather preoccupied with hope and forgiveness.