La venerazione come "contraccolpo" emotivo della prassi visionaria tra giudaismo del periodo ellenistico-romano e proto-cristianesimo (I sec. a.C.-II sec. d.C.)

This study is focused on the so-called Jewish apocalyptic texts considered from the viewpoint of the analysis, in a cognitive framework, of religious experience. The assumption is that, behind the texts as we possess them today, it is possible to discover actual practices of direct contact with the supernatural which appear to be conceptualized and put into writing on the basis of streams of tradition of traditional origin able to make the same visionary report authoritative and socially fruitful. In the light of this assumption, the veneration of supernatural beings experienced by the visionary during his direct contact with the other world takes on a fundamental role especially at the emotional and cognitive level. The vision of supernatural beings, variously defined, allows the construction of mental frames in which the veneration itself assumes contours that are rather mobile: it emerges as a practice which can be addressed not only to YHWH but also to beings which, in so far as they are entities which have made themselves present during an experience of direct contact with the supernatural, inevitably trigger, in the principal visionary agent, as well as in those who are identified in his message, the act of veneration itself (bowing, prostration, song, obedience etc.) as an emotional consequence. In this perspective, the study also tackles the multiple forms of veneration addressed to Jesus by the first believers, considered, above all, in their function as emotional acts consequent on their direct experience of Jesus, something which is shown during some experiences of direct contact with the supernatural.