Origins of the Kabbalah - Hardcover

Scholem, Gershom Gerhard

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0691073147 ISBN 13: 9780691073149

Publisher: Princeton University Press, 1987

Synopsis

One of the most important scholars of our century, Gershom Scholem (1897-1982) opened up a once esoteric world of Jewish mysticism, the Kabbalah, to concerned students of religion. The Kabbalah is a rich tradition of repeated attempts to achieve and portray direct experiences of God: its twelfth-and thirteenth-century beginnings in southern France and Spain are probed in Origins of the Kabbalah, a work crucial in Scholem's oeuvre. The book is a contribution not only to the history of Jewish medieval mysticism but also to the study of medieval mysticism in general and will be of interest to historians and psychologists, as well as to students of the history of religion.

About this title

Review:

Gershom Scholem's Origins of the Kabbalah provides a painstakingly detailed history of Kabbalah's rise among medieval French and Spanish Jews, describes the first publication of Jewish mystical texts, and investigates the growth of their influence on Jewish religious life. The book also doubles back to describe secret traditions of Jewish Gnosticism, which describe a Creation story so numerological and esoteric it makes the New Testament book of Revelation look as simple and straightforward as a Saturday-morning cartoon. This book is much denser than Scholem's excellent On the Kabbalah and its Symbolism, but for readers with a basic knowledge of Kabbalah, it shouldn't be rough going. --Michael Joseph Gross

Language Notes:

Text: English, German (translation)

About this edition

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Publication date: 1987
• ISBN 10: 0691073147
• ISBN 13: 9780691073149
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 503