Elyonim veTachtonim: Electronic inventory of angels, demons and ghosts in the early rabbinic literature

Elyonim veTachtonim: Electronic inventory of angels, demons and ghosts in the early rabbinic literature

What's in the name?

A passage in tractate bMegillah 11a-b conveys a tradition of three kings who have “ruled over the whole firmament” (Heb. shloshah malkhu bakipah): Ahab, Ahasuerus and Nebuchadnezzar. These emperors, however, are surpassed in proficiency and the range of power by king Solomon about whom it is said that “he ruled over the denizens of the upper world as well as of the lower (Heb. al haelyonim veal hatachtonim)”. The phrase itself came to function as a merism denoting the totality of the supernatural creatures, both good and evil.

What's inside?

Elyonim veTachtonim is also the code name for the project aimed at reconstructing the comprehensive inventory of the entities of various classes in the early rabbinic literature [ERL]. Since the task is laborious, the sources vast and the human resources scarce, the project expands gradually but slowly.

What's the purpose?

First of all, the database serves the function of a specialized thematic concordance and as such provides the means for a quick localization and juxtaposition of all the appearances of a given entity. Second, the detailed division into separate units allows the introduction of the quantitative methods of analysis, some of which are already published in the "summaries" sheets of the database. Third, the manipulation with the hashtags and filtering commands makes it possible to discern some particular regularities like the correlation between the given entity, topic and genre. This is just a small fraction of the potential applications, and the larger the database the more diverse the purposes. 

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