) , birth_date = c. 1670 , birth_place =

Kraków Kraków (), or Cracow, is the second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city dates back to the seventh century. Kraków was the official capital of Poland until 1596 ...

Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and, after 1791, as the Commonwealth of Poland, was a bi-confederal state, sometimes called a federation, of Crown of the Kingdom of ...

, death_date = 3 May 1716 ( O.S.)
14 May 1716 ( N.S.) , death_place =

Uppsala Uppsala (, or all ending in , ; archaically spelled ''Upsala'') is the county seat of Uppsala County and the List of urban areas in Sweden by population, fourth-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö. It had 177,074 inha ...

Swedish Empire The Swedish Empire was a European great power that exercised territorial control over much of the Baltic region during the 17th and early 18th centuries ( sv, Stormaktstiden, "the Era of Great Power"). The beginning of the empire is usually ta ...

, spouse = Siphra
Anna Strömer (m. 1701) , other_names = Moses Aaron
Johann Christian Jacob , occupation = Schoolmaster (Melamed)
Hebrew teacher
Author , notable_works = Likutei ha-Zohar
Me’irat Einayim
Eyn Sheyn Purim Shpil Johan Kemper (1670–1716), formerly Moshe ben Aharon Ha-Kohen of

or Moses Aaron, baptized Johann Christian Jacob; was a Polish

Sabbatean The Sabbateans (or Sabbatians) were a variety of Jewish followers, disciples, and believers in Sabbatai Zevi (1626–1676), a Sephardic Jewish rabbi and Kabbalist who was proclaimed to be the Jewish Messiah in 1666 by Nathan of Gaza. Vast ...

Jew who converted from

Judaism Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in the ...

Lutheran Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched th ...

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...

.Wolfson, Elliot R.
Messianism in the Christian Kabbala of Johann Kemper
", ''The Journal of Scriptural Reasoning'', Volume 1, No. 1, August 2001 (also appears in Goldish et al. (2001)) His conversion was motivated by his studies in

Kabbalah Kabbalah ( he, קַבָּלָה ''Qabbālā'', literally "reception, tradition") is an esoteric method, discipline and Jewish theology, school of thought in Jewish mysticism. A traditional Kabbalist is called a Mekubbal ( ''Məqūbbāl'' "rece ...

and his disappointment following the failure of a prophecy spread by the Polish Sabbatean prophet Zadok of

Grodno Grodno (russian: Гродно, pl, Grodno; lt, Gardinas) or Hrodna ( be, Гродна ), is a city in western Belarus. The city is located on the Neman River, 300 km (186 mi) from Minsk, about 15 km (9 mi) from the Polish b ...

, which predicted that

Sabbatai Zevi Sabbatai Zevi (; August 1, 1626 – c. September 17, 1676), also spelled Shabbetai Ẓevi, Shabbeṯāy Ṣeḇī, Shabsai Tzvi, Sabbatai Zvi, and ''Sabetay Sevi'' in Turkish, was a Jewish mystic and ordained rabbi from Smyrna (now İzmir, Turk ...

would return in the year 1695/6,Dole, George, F.
Philosemitism in the Seventeenth Century
,''Studia Swedenborgiana'', Volume 7, No. 1, December 1990 It is unclear whether he continued to observe Jewish practices after his conversion. Between 1696 and 1698 he worked for the Hebraist

Johann Christoph Wagenseil Johann Christoph Wagenseil (26 November 1633 - 9 October 1705) was a German historian, Orientalist, jurist and Christian Hebraist. Life and career Wagenseil was born in Nuremberg on 26 November 1633. As a youth he was educated at Stockholm, Gre ...

(1633-1705), for whom he composed a Yiddish

Purim play A Purim spiel (also spelled Purimshpil, yi, פּורימשפּיל, , see also spiel) or Purim play is an ensemble of festive practices for Purim. It is usually a comic dramatization of the Book of Esther, the central text and narrative that d ...

. In March 1701 he was employed as a teacher of Rabbinic Hebrew at

Uppsala University Uppsala University ( sv, Uppsala universitet) is a public university, public research university in Uppsala, Sweden. Founded in 1477, it is the List of universities in Sweden, oldest university in Sweden and the Nordic countries still in opera ...

in Sweden, until his death in 1716. Some scholars believe that he was

Emanuel Swedenborg Emanuel Swedenborg (, ; born Emanuel Swedberg; 29 March 1772) was a Swedish pluralistic-Christian theologian, scientist, philosopher and mystic. He became best known for his book on the afterlife, ''Heaven and Hell'' (1758). Swedenborg had ...

's Hebrew tutor. During his time at

, he wrote his three-volume work on 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 ...

'' entitled ''Likutei ha-Zohar'' (''Compilations from the Zohar'', 1710-13). In it, especially its frist part ''Matteh Moshe'' (''The Staff of Moses'', 1710), he attempted to show that the ''Zohar'' contained the

Christian doctrine Christian theology is the theology of Christian belief and practice. Such study concentrates primarily upon the texts of the Old Testament and of the New Testament, as well as on Christian tradition. Christian theologians use biblical exegesis, ...

of the

Trinity The Christian doctrine of the Trinity (, from 'threefold') is the central dogma concerning the nature of God in most Christian churches, which defines one God existing in three coequal, coeternal, consubstantial divine persons: God the F ...

. This belief also drove him to make a literal Hebrew translation of the

Gospel of Matthew The Gospel of Matthew), or simply Matthew. It is most commonly abbreviated as "Matt." is the first book of the New Testament of the Bible and one of the three synoptic Gospels. It tells how Israel's Messiah, Jesus, comes to his people and for ...

from Syriac (1703). He also wrote ''Me'irat 'Enayim'' (''The Enlightenment of the Eyes''), (1704) a

Christian Cabala Christian Kabbalah arose during the Renaissance due to Christian scholars' interest in the mysticism of Jewish Kabbalah, which they interpreted according to Christian theology. It is often transliterated as Cabala (also ''Cabbala'') to distingu ...

commentary on Matthew, which emphasized the unity of the Old and New Testaments and used elements from the Sabbatean and non-Sabbatean Kabbalistic traditions to derive Christian beliefs and meanings from traditional Jewish beliefs and practices. In his commentary on polemical treatment of Christianity in rabbinical literature he was one of the first Lutherans to comment on the connection between the form of the name "Joshua" used for

Jesus in the Talmud There are several passages in the Talmud which are believed by some scholars to be references to Jesus. The name used in the Talmud is "Yeshu", the Aramaic vocalization (although not spelling) of the Hebrew name ''Yeshua''. The identification o ...

, ''Yeshu'', instead of the normal ''Yeshua'' used for other figures, and connected the dropping of the final

ayin ''Ayin'' (also ''ayn'' or ''ain''; transliterated ) is the sixteenth letter of the Semitic scripts, including Phoenician , Hebrew , Aramaic , Syriac ܥ, and Arabic (where it is sixteenth in abjadi order only). The letter represents a ...

with the ancient curse ''

yimakh shemo ( he, יִמַּח שְׁמוֹ, yīmmaḥ šəmō, may his name be erased) is a Hebrew curse placed after the name of particular enemies of the Jewish people. A variant is ( he, יִמַּח שְׁמוֹ וְזִכְרוֹ, yīmmaḥ šəmō v� ...

.'' After his death, Kemper's student Andreas Norrelius (1679–1749) translated the commentary into Latin as ''Illuminatio oculorum'' (''The Light of the Eyes''),(1749).

Works

* ''Unterthäniger Bericht'' (1696)Níels P. Eggerz, “Johan Kemper's (Moses Aaron's) Humble Account: A Rabbi between Sabbateanism and Christianity,” ''Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History 12 (2015): Continuity and Change in the Jewish Communities of the Early Eighteenth Century''. *
Eyn Sheyn Purim Shpil
' (1697) * ''Hebrew Translation of Matthew's Gospel'' (1703) * ''Meirat Enayim'' (1704) * ''Likutei ha-Zohar'' (1710-1713)

Notes

References

*Eggerz, Níels P., “Purim in Altdorf: Johann Christoph Wagenseils Interesse am Jiddischen und dessen Kultur sowie seine Zusammenarbeit mit Johann Christian Jakob (Johan Kemper) und jüdischen Konvertiten im Allgemeinen,” in ''Zeitschrift für Religion- und Geistesgeschichte'' 71:2 (2019), 148–64. *Eggerz, Níels P., “Zur Verfasserfrage des Altdorfer Purimspiels von 1697,” in ''Jiddistik Mitteilungen'' 62 (2019), 21–33. *Eskhult, Josef (ed.), ''Andreas Norrelius' Latin translation of Johan Kemper's Hebrew commentary on Matthew: edited with introduction and philological commentary by Josef Eskhult'' Uppsala,2007. *Eskhult, Mats, “Rabbi Kemper’s Case for Christianity in his Matthew Commentary, with Reference to Exegesis,” in ''Religious Polemics in Context: Papers Presented to the Second International Conference of the Leiden Institute for the Study of Religions (Lisor) Held at Leiden, 27–28 April, 2000,'' 148–64. Edited by Theo L. Hettema, Assen: Royal Van Gorcum, 2004. *Goldish, M. Kottman, K.A. Popkin, R.H. Force, J.E. Laursen, J.C. (eds.), ''Millenarianism and Messianism in Early Modern European Culture: From Savonarola to the Abbé Grégoire''. Springer, 2001. *Maciejko, P. "Mosheh Ben Aharon Ha-Kohen of Krakow," in Hundert, G.D. (ed.), ''The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe,''. Yale, 2008. *Shifra, A. "Another Glance at Sabbatianism, Conversion, and Hebraism in Seventeenth Century Europe: Scrutinizing the Character of Johan Kempper (sic) of Uppsala, or Moshe Son of Aharon of Krakow," in Elior, R. (ed.), ''The Sabbatian Movement and Its Aftermath: Messianism, Sabbatianism and Frankism,''(Hebrew), Hebrew University. Jerusalem. *Wamsley, Rachel, “Characters against Type: Conversion, Mise-En-Page, and Counter-Exegesis in a Seventeenth-Century Purim Play,” in ''Lias'' 44 (2017), 59–88. *Wolfson, E. “Messianism in the Christian Kabbalah of Johann Kemper,” in ''Millenarianism and Messianism in the Early Modern European Culture: Jewish Messianism in the Early Modern World'', 139-187. Edited by M. D. Goldish and R. H. Popkin. The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2001 *Wolfson, E. “Angelic Embodiment and the Feminine Representation of Jesus: Reconstructing Carnality in the Christian Kabbalah of Johann Kemper,” in ''The “Jewish Body” in the Early Modern Period, ''395-426'. Edited by M. Diemling and G. Veltri. Leiden: Brill, 2008 {{DEFAULTSORT:Kemper, Johan 1670 births 1716 deaths Christian Hebraists Christian Kabbalists Converts to Lutheranism from Judaism Kabbalists Writers from Kraków 17th-century Polish Jews Polish Lutherans Sabbateans Uppsala University faculty Translators of the New Testament into Hebrew Jewish translators of the Bible Lutheran biblical scholars