READ!!! Gershom Gerhard Scholem "Origins of the Kabbalah"

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Gershom Gerhard Scholem, Allan Arkush, " Origins of the Kabbalah"

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Kabbalah

Gnostic ideas found a Jewish variation in the mystical study of Kabbalah. The Kabbalists took many core Gnostic ideas and used them to dramatically reinterpret earlier Jewish sources according to this new influence. See Gershom Scholem's Origins of the Kabbalah for further discussion. The Kabbalists originated in Provence which was at that time also the center of the Gnostic Cathars. It is thus believed that Cathar Gnostics persuaded Jews to Gnostic ideas, leading to the development of Kabbalah. Another influence on Kabbalah was probably that of the Muslim Ismailis. By contrast, however, followers of Kabbalah date its origins as early as the Garden of Eden.

Kabbalah, however, does not employ the terminology or labels of gentile Gnosticism, but grounds the same or similar concepts in the language of the Torah (first five books of the Hebrew Bible). Nevertheless, during the time periods when Gnosticism was drawing large numbers of followers from various religions, creating Gnostic versions of those religions, many Jews also developed a mystical version of Judaism remarkably similar to Gnostic beliefs.

While Kabbalah shares several themes with Gnosticism, such as a multiplicity of heavenly levels and archetypes and the importance of mystical knowledge of these, it does not reflect the distinctive Gnostic belief that the material world and the Hebrew Bible are the work of an inferior and malevolent deity. Rather than describing Kabbalah as a form of Gnosticism, it would be more accurate to describe both Kabbalah and Gnosticism as members of a family of Neoplatonic/Neopythagorean Oriental mystical traditions, which would also include Sufism. Gershom Scholem once described Gnosticism as "the Greatest case of metaphysical anti-Semitism."

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Kabbalah Collection 1086 files

Misc collection of Kabbalah books.