Gerold Necker and Bill Rebiger: The One and the Many: The Structure and Versions of Keter Shem Tov According to the New Synoptic Edition with a Special Focus on MS Jerusalem, NLI, 8° 541 (original) (raw)

The article focuses on the anonymous kabbalistic treatise "Keter Shem Tov" (Crown of the Good Name). This text combines two different traditions: first, speculations and gematriot about the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, especially those of the Tetragrammaton as known from the Ḥasidei Ashkenaz (German Pietists), and second, the theosophical concept of the ten sefirot as developed mainly in the pre-zoharic Spanish Kabbalah of the thirteenth century. In fact, "Keter Shem Tov", which was probably composed in Catalonia around 1260, is the first treatise we know of in which these traditions come together. Thus, the early attribution to the legendary Ashkenazi scholar Rabbi Abraham bar Axelrad of Cologne—who, according to the testimony of Rabbi Solomon ibn Adret, taught in the synagogue in Barcelona—is perfectly fitting even in the face of a lack of convincing historical evidence.

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