| Description |
1 online resource (xvii, 668 pages) |
| Physical Medium |
polychrome |
| Description |
text file |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 493-645) and index. |
| 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. |
| Local Note |
eBooks on EBSCOhost EBSCO eBook Subscription Academic Collection - North America |
| Subject |
Bible. Pentateuch -- Criticism, interpretation, etc., Jewish.
|
|
Bible. Pentateuch. |
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Bible. Pentateuch -- Criticism, interpretation, etc., Jewish. |
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Bible. A.T. Pentateuque -- Critique, interprétation, etc. juives. |
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Cabala -- History.
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Cabala. |
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History. |
| Genre/Form |
Electronic books.
|
| Other Form: |
Print version: Idel, Moshe, 1947- Absorbing perfections. New Haven : Yale University Press, ©2002 0300083793 9780300083798 (DLC) 2001006563 (OCoLC)48376069 |
| ISBN |
9780300135077 (electronic book) |
|
0300135076 (electronic book) |
|
1281734861 |
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9781281734860 |
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0300083793 |
|
9780300083798 |
|
