Sabbatai Sevi: The Mystical Messiah, 1626 1676

Description

Gershom Scholem stands out among modern thinkers for the richness and power of his historical imagination. A work widely esteemed as his magnum opus, Sabbatai ?evi offers a vividly detailed account of the only messianic movement ever to engulf the entire Jewish world. Sabbatai ?evi was an obscure kabbalist rabbi of seventeenth-century Turkey who aroused a fervent following that spread over the Jewish world after he declared himself to be the Messiah. The movement suffered a severe blow when ?evi was forced to convert to Islam, but a clandestine sect survived. A monumental and revisionary work of Jewish historiography, Sabbatai ?evi details ?evi's rise to prominence and stands out for its combination of philological and empirical authority and passion. This edition contains a new introduction by Yaacob Dweck that explains the scholarly importance of Scholem's work to a new generation of readers.

Author description

Gershom Scholem (1897-1982) was one of the most important Jewish intellectuals of the twentieth century and the father of the academic study of Jewish mysticism. He was a professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Yaacob Dweck is associate professor of history and Judaic studies at Princeton University. He is the author of The Scandal of Kabbalah (Princeton).

Table of contents

*Frontmatter, pg. i*Table of Contents, pg. ix*List of Plates, pg. xv*Table of Transliteration, pg. xix*Preface, pg. xxi*Introduction to The Princetion Classics Edition, pg. xxix*1. The Background of The Sabbatian Movement, pg. 1*2. The Beginnings of Sabbatai Sevi (1626 - 1664), pg. 103*3. The Beginnings of The Movement in Palestine (1665), pg. 199*4. The Movement Up to Sabbatai's Imprisonment in Gallipoli (1665 - 1666), pg. 327*5. The Movement in Europe (1666), pg. 461*6. The Movement in The East and The Center at Gallipoli Until Sabbatai's Apostasy (1666), pg. 603*7. After The Apostasy (1667 - 1668), pg. 687*8. The Last Years of Sabbatai Sevi (1668 - 1676), pg. 821*Bibliography, pg. 931*Index, pg. 957