Messianic Mystics

by Moshe Idel

• ISBN13: 9780300082883
• ISBN10: 0300082886
• Format: Trade Paper
• Copyright: 2000-05-11
• Publisher: Yale University Press

Summary

Exploring the interplay of Jewish messianism and mysticism from the twelfth through the eighteenth centuries, a leading scholar of Jewish thought provides new perspectives in this controversial book. Moshe Idel counters common views, showing the close relation of messianism and mysticism, the early messianic orientation of Kabbalah, and the resemblance of Jewish messianic and mystical experience to Christian messianism.

Table of Contents

Preface	vii
Introduction: The Sources of Messianic Consciousness	1	(37)
Pre-Kabbalistic Jewish Forms of Messianism	38	(20)
Ecstatic Kabbalah and Spiritual Messianism	58	(43)
Abraham Abulafia
Concepts of Messiah in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries: Theosophical Forms of Kabbalah	101	(25)
Messianism and Kabbalah, 1470--1540	126	(28)
From Italy to Safed and Back, 1540--1640	154	(29)
Sabbateanism and Mysticism	183	(29)
Mystical Messianism and Mystical Redemption	212	(36)
Hasidism
Concluding Remarks	248	(47)
Appendix One Ego, Ergo Sum Messiah: On Abraham Abulafia's Sefer ha-Yashar	295	(13)
Appendix Two A Ritual between Myth, Messianism, and Mysticism	308	(13)
Tiqqun Hatzot
Appendix Three Some Modern Reverberations of Jewish Messianism	321	(6)
Notes	327	(102)
References	429	(14)
Indexes	443