Renaissance Discoveries: The Kabbalah

The Hebrew language was long despised by or unknown to Christian scholars in the West. The only reason to learn it, most Christians believed, was to refute Jewish arguments. Against this background of anti-Semitism, a young Italian scholar, Giovanni Pico, the Prince of Mirandola, began studying Hebrew in the 1480s. He planned to incorporate Jewish insights-in particular, the mystical tradition known as Kabbalah-into a universal philosophy and religion that also encompassed Christianity, Greek philosophy and even Islam. His plan to give a public demonstration of this wisdom in Rome before the pope in 1487 ended with his arrest and imprisonment on charges of heresy. But the mystical strands that Pico teased out of medieval Judaism would soon be woven into the fabric of Western philosophy and culture.

[@claudiascott6654]

These lectures are fascinating,fabulous and fun! I'm going through each one and then I'll start over again. Thank you!

[@evans808274mc9la]

Great work. Highly appreciated

[@rossking3163]

My pleasure. Thank you!

[@ML-rz2hb]

I love these lectures. In fact, I've seen so many of them that if you were to change around your books, I would be sure to notice.

[@rossking3163]

Keep watching - maybe one day I'll tidy them up!

[@sharongershoni]

Dear Prof. King,
I attended your fascinating talk at the Free Library in Philadelphia about your book The Bookseller of Florence (which I love!). I've been following your video lectures since.
In the Hebrew text of the image for the Kabbalah video there is a typo in the last letter of the word 'Bereshit'. Instead of the ת (one key on the right of 'M', sounds like 't'), the letter used here is ' ח' (on the key 'J' , sounds like the guttural 'kh').
Thank you so much for the videos!
Sharon Gershoni.

[@rossking3163]

Thank you for pointing this out!

[@scottonstott8734]

Brilliant!