From: RFaussette@aol.com
Date: Tue Nov 04 2003 - 12:47:31 EST
In a message dated 11/4/03 8:21:06 AM Eastern Standard Time,
bnelson301@yahoo.com writes:
--- RFaussette@aol.com wrote:
(SNIP)
> "At the time when the Mishna was edited, there
> existed a secret doctine
> concerning the Creation and Divine Nature. There was
> agreement on its manner of
> study and division, and its name excited a kind of
> religious awe even among
> those who could not have known it. But how long had
> this doctrine existed? And
> if we cannot determine that precisely, is there
> any way of telling when the
> deep shadows formed that shrouded its origin? This
> is the question which we
> will now attempt to answer.
> In the opinion of the most reliable historians, the
> editing of the Mishna
> came to an end no later than the year 3949 after
> Creation, 189 years after the
> birth of Christ.
Which reliable scholars are these, exactly?
rich responds:
Adolphe Francke wrote the book - francke was a hebraist, orientalist,
published a translation of the pentateuch. he was chair of natural and legal
philosphy at the college de france in the 19th century.
"As for the tempting but confusing question of origins, suffice it to say
that the author - and he has been upheld by later scholarship, including that of
the greatest living historian of Jewish mysticism, Professor gershom
scholem, professor of the history of Jewish mysticism at hebrew university in
Jerusalem - considers the kabbalah to be pre-Christian and Zoroastrian in origin."
bnelson:
Do you really believe that tradition of the kabbalists
has been uninterruptedly transmitted by the mouths of
the patriarchs, prophets, elders, etc., ever since the
creation of the first man?
rich responds:
If you do a search on the origins of the kabbalah you'll see that the written
claims only go so far as the 1st century but the orthodox /hasid claim oral
tradition to Abraham.
One hit reads;
"No-one knows. The earliest documents which are generally acknowledged as
being Kabbalistic come from the 1st. Century C.E., but there is a suspicion that
the Biblical phenomenon of prophecy may have been grounded in a much older
oral tradition which was a precursor to the earliest recognisable forms of
Kabbalah. Some believe the tradition goes back as far as Melchizedek. There are
moderately plausible arguments that Pythagoras received his learning from Hebrew
sources. There is a substantial literature of Jewish mysticism dating from the
period 100AD - 1000AD which is not strictly Kabbalistic in the modern sense,
but which was available as source material to medieval Kabbalists."
bnelson:
The Book of Creation has been claimed by many
Kabbalists to go back to Abraham and, as you have
indicated above it has also been ascribed by others to
Rabbi Akiba (d. A.D. 120). The former claim has no
support. The latter is a matter of great controversy.
rich responds:
The former claim has support but for the oral tradition not for written
copies. (as above). The latter is supported by francke who is supported by scholem.
do you have any data suggesting francke and scholem are wrong? remember the
origin of written copies and the origin of the oral tradition are two
different things but the talmud supports akiba -
bnelson:
The Zohar, is accepted widely as being a compilation
by a Spanish Jew, Moses of Leon (d. 1305). To the
extent that some of its contents reflect eralier
thoughts, it reflects a potpourri of the philosophy of
Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, the neo-Platonists of
Alexandria, the Oriental or Egyptian Pantheists, and
the Gnostics of the earliest Christian era. Of
course, all these sources were available to Spanish
Jews at the time, thanks to Arab preservation of the
hellenistic literature. Isn't it much more
historically and logically supported to believe that
the Zohar is just an eclectic collection of beliefs
that Moses of Leon put together based on his available
sources?
rich responds;
There is an extensive argument against Moses de Leon in francke's book, among
them that his copy cites books of which only fragments have come down to us
and it was written in the aramean language of no particular dialect. The author
asks - what scheme could have motivated de Leon to employ an idiom not
used in his time? The argument against de Leon is lengthy - he is called an
impostor a number of times. It is admitted he had a copy but that he added to it
and was not the original author.
rich faussette
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