Travel and the Making of a Pseudepigraphical Hero in Ancient Jewish and Early Christian Literature

This article investigates the function of the travel motif in selected ancient Jewish and early Christian pseudepigrapha. It argues that accounts of transformative journeys are an overlooked aspect of this generative body of literature from antiquity. Though the use of the travel motif is not to be regarded as a necessary genre marker, it is remarkable that several pseudepigraphical writings narrate long-distance or cosmic movement of a protagonist who achieves a heightened or heroic status because of acquiring divine knowledge or encountering an aspect of the divine on the move. In most cases, moreover, it is an exemplary figure from the scriptural past who plays a decisive role in the perpetuation of textual tradition.