In one essay from this very fine conference volume, Matthias Hoffmann thoughtfully juxtaposes two pious, traditional prayers, one Christian and one Jewish:

In the name of the Lord, the God of Israel:

Both prayers are ostensibly monotheistic, and yet each one invokes its own protective phalanx of, well, not ‘gods’ but … what? Saints in the first instance, angels in the second. In the Christian tradition, some (pre-Christian, Jewish) angels also count as saints, blurring the boundary between the two categories. Nowhere is this latter dynamic better attested than in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, which also famously preserves a number of very important ancient Jewish texts (for example, Jubilees, 1 Enoch) that are non-extant or only partially extant in other ancient languages.

Which brings us to the occasion for the volume here under review, which comprises the proceedings of a conference of the same name convened in 2017 at LMU Munich by Amsalu Tefera and Loren Stuckenbruck, who also edited this volume together. The nine main essays explore angelology in a number of ancient Jewish and Christian texts, especially but not only ones from the Ethiopic tradition. The volume does not attempt to be comprehensive, but it does highlight how extensively ancient Jewish and Christian cosmologies overlapped and how remarkably well this dynamic is preserved in the Ethiopian textual tradition, in particular.

Loreen Maseno's essay stands apart for being more theological than its counterparts. She gives an African women's theological reading of the story of Hagar in the desert in Genesis xvi, suggesting that the angel who meets Hagar is not, as the redactor says, YHWH, but rather El Roi, a different patron god of the Ishmaelites. Eshbal Ratzon explores why the heavenly abode of the luminaries (i.e., the locations of the sun, moon and stars when they are not visible to human eyes) is a prominent theme in Hellenistic-period Jewish texts but not earlier ones. She makes a strong case that many Hebrew Bible texts do in fact know this problem but suppress it due to anxieties about worship being offered to the divine luminaries. Jacques van Ruiten gives a helpful survey of the many classes and roles of angels in the Book of Jubilees. Loren Stuckenbruck analyses a fascinating verbal parallel between 11QBerakhot (11Q14) and Tobit xi.14: a prayer of benediction to all of God's holy angels. This, Stuckenbruck suggests, is a liturgical fragment from a kind of Jewish piety that directed devotion not only to God but also to the angelic host. Matthias Hoffmann turns to ‘magical’ texts and artefacts: spells, grimoires, bowls, amulets etc, showing what elaborate use these make of angels, both Jewish and Christian (as in the prayers cited at the beginning of this review).

Of the final four essays in the volume, each one explores angelology in a particular lesser-known Ethiopic text. Amsalu Tefera considers the figure of the archangel Uriel in the late medieval Dərsanä Ura'el (Homily on Uriel). Tedros Abraha does likewise for the representation of angels in the Mäṣḥafä Qəddase (Book of Hallowing), a missal containing most of the essential Geʽez liturgies, and in the andəmta (traditional commentaries) thereon. Dan Levene catalogues the many divine names used in the early modern Dərsanä Michael (Homily on Michael) and in a number of Geʽez amulets that attest parts of that text. Finally, Ralph Lee considers the curious case of the Qumran Book of Giants, which is (so far) not known to be attested in Ethiopic, despite its clear links to the mythology of the Ethiopic Book of the Watchers (1 Enoch 1–36). Lee argues that the so-called Ethiopic Giant's Tale from one medieval homily (Rətu‘a Haymanot, The Orthodox Faith) might betray a closer connection to the Book of Giants that has hitherto been recognised.

In antiquity, Paula Fredriksen has said, even the monotheists were polytheists. Jews and Christians confessed that God is one, but they were intimately aware of a host of other godlike beings (angels, saints, spirits, giants, demons etc.) whom they hymned, blessed, petitioned, invoked, adjured, loved, feared and mythologised. Tefera and Stuckenbruck and their contributors give us ample evidence of these important forms of piety. Mika Ahuvia's new book (On my right Michael, on my left Gabriel, Oakland, Ca 2021) documents the Jewish evidence more thoroughly still. Ancient Jews and Christians may not have called these angelic beings ‘gods’, but if it walks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck …