Sepher Yetzirah (Book of Formation) - Westcott

Both of these Hebrew classics speak of it as a very ancient work.

The most generally accepted modern opinion is that the author was Rabbi Akiba, who lived in the time of the Emperor Hadrian, around 120 A.D.

Graetz, however, assigns it to early Gnostic A diverse group of early religious movements that emphasized secret spiritual knowledge. times, in the third or fourth century. Zunz speaks of it as post-Talmudical Written after the completion of the Talmud, the central text of Rabbinic Judaism. and belonging to the Geonic period The era of the Jewish spiritual leaders and scholars in Babylonia, roughly 600 to 1000 A.D. from 700 to 800 A.D. Rubinsohn, in the "Sacred Library" original: "Bibliotheca Sacra", speaks of this latter idea as having no real basis.

The Talmuds The collections of Jewish law and tradition. were first collected into a concrete whole and printed in Venice in 1520 A.D.

The "Zohar" The foundational work of Jewish mysticism, or Kabbalah. was first printed in Mantua in 1558, again in Cremona in 1560, and at Lublin in 1623; a fourth edition was published by Knorr von Rosenroth at Sulzbach in 1684. Some parts are not very ancient, since some versions mention the Crusades.

Six surviving Hebrew editions of the "Sepher Yetzirah" were collected and printed at Lemberg in 1680. The oldest of these six recensions A revised or critical version of a text. was that of Saadjah Gaon.

Commentaries by Judah Halevi and by Eben Ezra, from the 12th century, are also known.

There are now to be found in the best libraries several Latin versions, namely: that of Guillaume Postel original: "Gulielmus Postellus", 1552, Paris; one by Johann Pistorius in his "Volume of the Cabalistic Art" original: "Artis Cabalisticæ Tomus", 1587, Basel; and a third by Joannes Stephanus Rittangelius, 1642, Amsterdam. This last version provides both the Hebrew and Latin texts, and also includes the "Thirty-Two Paths" as a supplement.

There is also a good German translation by Johann Friedrich von Meyer, dated 1830. Quite recently, and since the completion of my translation, my attention has been drawn to a version by Isidor Kalisch, in which he has reproduced many of the valuable annotations of Meyer. The edition which I now offer is fundamentally that of the ancient Hebrew codices Manuscript volumes of ancient texts. translated into English, and compared with the Latin versions of Pistorius, Postel, and Rittangelius.