Revisiting Kabbalah: The Sefirotic Tree in the Syriac New Testament

Maximilian de Molière

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Chapter 7 Revisiting Kabbalah: The Sefirotic Tree in the Syriac New Testament

In: Confronting Kabbalah: Studies in the Christian Hebraist Library of Johann Albrecht Widmanstetter

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Maximilian de Molière

Maximilian de Molière
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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 255–301

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004689527_008

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Abstract

The editio princeps of the Syriac New Testament Widmanstetter published in Vienna in 1555 offers another facet of his position vis-á-vis Kabbalah. As part of this book, Widmanstetter created with Guillaume Postel a plate depicting a sefirotic tree opposite the Crucifixion. The idea was apparently that both the sefirot and the Crucifixion indicate aspects of the hidden nature of God. Close readings of marginal notes Widmanstetter made in his recension of the Zohar (BSB, Codd. hebr. 217–219) show that the nature of God and the Trinity were often connected to him. Using the motifs of the plate as a guide, the themes of his kabbalistic doctrine are reconstructed from the marginal notes of his copy of the Zohar and his manuscripts displaying and discussing the ten sefirot. This plate is not a reversal of Widmanstetter’s previous stance on Kabbalah, but it is within the parameters that he established twelve years before in the Commentary on the Quran, where he allowed the doctrine of the ten sefirot as one of the few kabbalistic ideas compatible with Christianity. Widmanstetter remained uncomfortable with the subject matter and discouraged reckless application of Kabbalah to Christian theology. He expressly warned against applying kabbalistic methods of hermeneutics to the Syriac text of the New Testament in the book’s introduction.

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Confronting Kabbalah: Studies in the Christian Hebraist Library of Johann Albrecht Widmanstetter

Series: Supplements to The Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy, Volume: 36

E-Book ISBN:: 9789004689527

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 02 Jan 2024

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Chapter 7 Revisiting Kabbalah: The Sefirotic Tree in the Syriac New Testament

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Confronting Kabbalah: Studies in the Christian Hebraist Library of Johann Albrecht Widmanstetter

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