Description
This study demonstrates that the rabbinic belief-system regarding the afterlife and the human soul was the paramount influence on the development of the doctrine of reincarnation that was crystallized in the Sefer ha-Bahir (The Book of Clarity/Illumination) a 12th-century work written in Hebrew and Aramaic. Prior research has noted the great impact Gnosticism had on early Jewish mysticism in general and the Sefer ha-Bahir in particular. The analysis of the talmudic and midrashic sources presents a broad spectrum of ideas concerning the eternity and immortality of the soul, the nature and characteristics of the soul and the notions of the resurrection of the dead and reincarnation. These ideas, brought together in the study as a systematic theology, reveal a fairly developed tradition that was probably known to the author or editor of the Sefer ha-Bahir.
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