Baruch of Benevento was an Italian Jewish
Cabalist in
Naples
Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...
, during the first half of the 16th century.
He was the teacher of
Cardinal Ægidius of Viterbo and of
Johann Albrecht Widmanstadt in the ''
Zohar
The ''Zohar'' ( he, , ''Zōhar'', lit. "Splendor" or "Radiance") is a foundational work in the literature of Jewish mystical thought known as Kabbalah. It is a group of books including commentary on the mystical aspects of the Torah (the five ...
'' and other cabalistic works, and lectured on these subjects in the house of
Samuel Abravanel. In a note at the end of one of his manuscripts, Widmanstadt says: "Eodem tempore (MDXLI.) audivi Baruch Beneventanum optimum cabalistam, qui primus libros Zoharis per Ægidium Viterbiensem Cardinalem in Christianos vulgavit."
Graetz, Perles, and others have taken this to mean that Baruch translated the ''Zohar'', or parts of it, into Latin; but Steinschneider has remarked that it means nothing more than that he made the ''Zohar'' known to Christian scholars.
References
*Grätz, ''Gesch. der Juden,'' ix.48, 95, 161;
*Perles, in ''Revue Etudes Juives,'' i.299;
*idem, ''Beiträge zur Gesch. der Hebr. und Aramäischen Studien,'' Munich, 1884, pp. 154, 180;
*Steinschneider, in ''Hebräische Bibliographie,'' xxi.81.
*
Year of birth unknown
Year of death unknown
Jewish scholars
Kabbalists
16th-century Neapolitan people
16th-century Italian rabbis
16th-century scholars
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