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Scholem, Gershom Gerhard : JEWISH GNOSTICISM, MERKABAH MYSTICISM, AND TALMUDIC TRADITION

New York, Jewish Theological Seminary Of America,, 1965

Hardcover, 8vo, 136 pages, 24 cm. Edition: 2d improved ed. SUBJECT (S) : Mysticism -- Judaism. Judaisme. Merkavah-mystiek. Gnosticisme. Talmoed. Based on the Israel Goldstein lectures, delivered at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, New York. Includes bibliographical references. Scholem (1898-1982) was “the most important scholar of Jewish mysticism and a towering figure in Jewish intellectual life. Born to an assimilated family in Berlin, he was attracted in his youth to Judaism and Zionism and studied major Hebrew Jewish texts and Kabbalah by himself. After completing a Ph. D. Thesis in 1923 on Sefer ha-Bahir, he arrived in Israel, and taught at the Hebrew University, becoming the first professor to devote all his studies and teaching to the topic of Jewish mysticism. His achievement in surveying all the major stages and writings belonging to this topic is staggering. In the difficult times of the 1920s and 1930s, he traveled to all the major European libraries and systematically studied all the available manuscripts. In 1939 he delivered a series of lectures in New York, which became the first comprehensive analysis of the historical and phenomenological aspects of the entire range of Jewish mysticism: Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, which is also his most influential and widely read book. Building upon his perusal of manuscripts, he published from the mid-1920s a series of articles in Hebrew in which he identified many anonymous manuscripts, and from 1948, a series of analyses about the beginning of Kabbalah. In its most elaborated form, it appeared in English posthumously as Origins of the Kabbalah, translated by A. Arkush and edited by R. Z. J. Werblowsky. Alongside those studies he identified, published, and analyzed in detail the main documents pertinent to Shabbateanism, and in 1957, he published in Hebrew the most important synthesis of the historical and religious aspects of the Shabbatean movement in the lifetime of Shabbetai ? Evi. From 1948, Scholem was a permanent participant in the Eranos encounters in Ascona, Switzerland, where he lectured and interacted with the major scholars of religion of his generation, such as Carl G. Jung, Mircea Eliade, and Henry Corbin. In 1972 he formulated his last summary of his understanding of Kabbalah in the various entries he contributed to Encyclopedia Judaica, which were collected in the volume Kabbalah. Scholem was widely recognized as the leading scholar in Judaica in the 20th century and was accorded numerous prizes and honorary titles, among them the Israel Prize, the Bialik Prize, and the Rothschild Prize, and served as the head of the Israeli Academy of Science and Humanities. He wrote an autobiography, From Berlin to Jerusalem, and corresponded with many persons, including Walter Benjamin. His rich library is indubitably the best one in the field of Jewish mysticism, and it became part of the Jewish National and University Library, serving as a major resource for studies in the field. A catalogue raisonne of his library has been printed in two volumes, edited by Joseph Dan and Esther Liebes, The Library of Gershom Scholem on Jewish Mysticism” (Idel in EJ. 2007) . Light wear. Lightly bumped corners. Otherwise, very good condition. (Rab-40-6)

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