Description |
1 online resource (xvii, 668 pages) |
Contents |
The world-absorbing text -- The God-absorbing text : black fire on white fire -- Text and interpretation affinities in Kabbalah -- The book that contains and maintains all -- Magical and magical-mystical arcanizations of canonical books -- Torah study and mystical experiences in Jewish mysticism -- Secrecy, binah, and derishah -- Semantics, constellation, and interpretation -- Radical forms of Jewish hermeneutics -- The symbolic mode of theosophical-theurgical Kabbalah -- Allegories, divine names, and experiences in ecstatic Kabbalah -- Tzerufei otiyyot : mutability and accommodation of the Torah in Jewish mysticism -- Tradition, transmission, and techniques -- Concluding remarks -- Appendix 1. Pardes : the fourfold method of interpretation -- Appendix 2. Abraham Abulafia's Torah of blood and ink -- Appendix 3. R. Isaac of Acre's exegetical quandary -- Appendix 4. The exile of the Torah and the imprisonment of secrets -- Appendix 5. On oral Torah and multiple interpretations in Hasidism -- Appendix 6. "Book of God"/"book of law" in late-fifteenth-century Florence |
Summary |
In this wide-ranging discussion of Kabbalah - from the mystical trends of mediaeval Judaism to modern Hasidism - this book considers different visions of the nature of the sacred text and of the methods to interpret it. It takes as a starting point the fact that the post-biblical Jewish world lost its geographical centre with the destruction of the temple and so was left with a textual centre, the Holy Book. The author argues that a text-oriented religion produced language-centred forms of mysticism. Against this background, he demonstrates how various Jewish mystics amplified the content of the Scriptures so as to include everything: the world, or God, for example |
Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 493-645) and index |
Notes |
Print version record |
SUBJECT |
Bible. Pentateuch -- Criticism, interpretation, etc., Jewish
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Bible. Pentateuch fast |
Subject |
Cabala -- History
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RELIGION -- Judaism -- Kabbalah & Mysticism.
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RELIGION -- Judaism -- Sacred Writings.
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Cabala
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Jodendom.
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Mystiek.
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Kabbala.
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Genre/Form |
History
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Form |
Electronic book
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ISBN |
9780300135077 |
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0300135076 |
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1281734861 |
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9781281734860 |
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