Find out how kabbalah reached its peak in the later middle. Jewish mysticism particularly the kabbalah (hebrew word meaning reception) emerged in the middle ages and focuses on the mystical interpretation of the hebrew bible. Most medieval jewish thinkers responded to this challenge by interpreting these biblical passages metaphorically and stressing that the bible speaks in the language of humans.
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This course explores the history and themes of jewish mysticism and magic from the hebrew bible to the kabbalah.
It begins with a brief historical overview that will help establish the framework for the forms of jewish interpretation.
An overview of the history, methods, and sources of jewish exegesis in the medieval period, from the geonic period to the spanish expulsion. A chapter from a book that explores the mystical interpretation of the hebrew bible in jewish culture and history. Classical and traditional jewish culture is fundamentally a text culture — formed, informed, and reformed by scripture (the hebrew bible) and its interpretation. It traces the origins and development of mystical commentary on scripture.
Jewish mysticism, which i define below from talmudic and other perspectives, arose almost two thousand years ago. The origins of medieval jewish biblical exegesis are likely to be found in the interplay between the babylonian geonic rabbinical academies and karaite jewish biblical. This article discusses jewish interpretation of the bible. Learn about the geonim, saadia gaon,.
[42] these midrashim, written in mishnaic hebrew, clearly distinguish between.
Learn about the ancient jewish tradition of mystical interpretation of the bible, first transmitted orally and using esoteric methods. An introduction to the history and methods of jewish exegesis in the middle ages, influenced by islamic scholarship and oral tradition. Midrash halakha is the name given to a group of tannaitic expositions on the first five books of the hebrew bible. Jewish mysticism flourished in the middle ages, particularly through kabbalah, where scholars developed mystical interpretations of the bible.
With the exception of a few sources on jewish biblical interpretation in the 19th and 20th centuries, all the key sources are written in hebrew and aramaic. It examines the roots, development, and expressions of jewish mystical. In fact, the protestant reformers of the sixteenth century were largely indebted to jewish scholars of the middle ages, such as rashi, in their plain sense exegesis of the old testament.
