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''Sefer HaRazim'' ( he, ספר הרזים; "Book of Secrets") is a Jewish magical text supposedly given to
Noah Noah ''Nukh''; am, ኖህ, ''Noḥ''; ar, نُوح '; grc, Νῶε ''Nôe'' () is the tenth and last of the pre-Flood patriarchs in the traditions of Abrahamic religions. His story appears in the Hebrew Bible (Book of Genesis, chapters 5� ...
by the angel Raziel, and passed down throughout Biblical history until it ended up in the possession of
Solomon Solomon (; , ),, ; ar, سُلَيْمَان, ', , ; el, Σολομών, ; la, Salomon also called Jedidiah (Hebrew language, Hebrew: , Modern Hebrew, Modern: , Tiberian Hebrew, Tiberian: ''Yăḏīḏăyāh'', "beloved of Yahweh, Yah"), ...
, for whom it was a great source of his wisdom and purported magical powers. Note that this is not the same work as the '' Sefer Raziel HaMalakh'', which was given to
Adam Adam; el, Ἀδάμ, Adám; la, Adam is the name given in Genesis 1-5 to the first human. Beyond its use as the name of the first man, ''adam'' is also used in the Bible as a pronoun, individually as "a human" and in a collective sense as " ...
by the same angel, although both works stem from the same tradition, and large parts of ''Sefer HaRazim'' were incorporated into the ''Sefer Raziel'' under its original title. It is thought to be a sourcebook for Jewish magic, calling upon
angels In various theistic religious traditions an angel is a supernatural spiritual being who serves God. Abrahamic religions often depict angels as benevolent celestial intermediaries between God (or Heaven) and humanity. Other roles incl ...
rather than
God In monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy'', Oxford University Press, 1995. God is typically ...
to perform supernatural feats.


Discovery

The text was rediscovered in the 20th century by Mordecai Margalioth, a Jewish scholar visiting Oxford in 1963, using fragments found in the
Cairo Geniza The Cairo Geniza, alternatively spelled Genizah, is a collection of some 400,000 Jewish manuscript fragments and Fatimid administrative documents that were kept in the ''genizah'' or storeroom of the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Fustat or Old Cairo, ...
. He hypothesised that several fragments of Jewish magical literature shared a common source and was certain that he could reconstruct this common source. He achieved this in 1966 when he published ''Sefer HaRazim''. The first English translation of the book was undertaken by Michael A. Morgan in 1983; the book is now in print, as of summer 2007. A new scholarly edition of the main extant manuscript including Hebrew and
Judeo-Arabic Judeo-Arabic dialects (, ; ; ) are ethnolects formerly spoken by Jews throughout the Arabic-speaking world. Under the ISO 639 international standard for language codes, Judeo-Arabic is classified as a macrolanguage under the code jrb, enco ...
Geniza fragments and a 13th-century Latin translation was prepared by Bill Rebiger and Peter Schäfer in 2009, along with a translation and commentary in German in a separate volume.


Dating

Margalioth places the date of the original text to the early fourth or late third century CE. This date is almost universally accepted; a notable exception is Ithamar Gruenwald who dates the text to the sixth or seventh century. Nonetheless, it is clear that this text predates Kabbalistic texts, including 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 ...
'' (thirteenth century), the ''
Bahir ''Bahir'' or ''Sefer HaBahir'' ( he, סֵפֶר הַבָּהִיר, ; "Book of Clarity" or "Book of Illumination") is an anonymous mystical work, attributed to a 1st-century rabbinic sage Nehunya ben HaKanah (a contemporary of Yochanan ben Zaka ...
'' (thirteenth century as well), and possibly the proto-Kabbalistic ''
Sefer Yetzirah ''Sefer Yetzirah'' ( ''Sēp̄er Yəṣīrā'', ''Book of Formation'', or ''Book of Creation'') is the title of a book on Jewish mysticism, although some early commentators treated it as a treatise on mathematical and linguistic theory as opposed ...
'' (fourth century). There are certain textual clues that point toward this early date, specifically the reference to "the Roman
indiction An indiction ( la, indictio, impost) was a periodic reassessment of taxation in the Roman Empire which took place every fifteen years. In Late Antiquity, this 15-year cycle began to be used to date documents and it continued to be used for this p ...
s in 1:27-28
hich Ij ( fa, ايج, also Romanized as Īj; also known as Hich and Īch) is a village in Golabar Rural District, in the Central District of Ijrud County, Zanjan Province, Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also ...
gives a clear ''terminus a quo'' of 297 CE" (Morgan 8).


Structure and content

The book is split into seven sections, not including a preface which details the book's reception and transmission. Each of the first six sections corresponds to one heaven and contains a listing of angels and instructions to perform one or more magical rites. Only the throne of God and the four ''hayots'' are in the seventh heaven. There is an uneasy tension between the orthodox cosmogony of the book and the unorthodox praxeis embodied in these magical rites; the book has obviously been edited by a rabbinical scribe, but the "popular religion" contained in the book is more or less intact. Some of the rituals purport to facilitate healing, prophecy, an attack upon one's enemy, and gaining good fortune. The number seven, the importance of divine names, and the prevalence of sympathetic magic all have significance in the literature of Middle Eastern magic. The text demonstrates strong syncretism of Jewish and Greek traditions; an example is a prayer to the sun god
Helios In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Helios (; grc, , , Sun; Homeric Greek: ) is the god and personification of the Sun (Solar deity). His name is also Latinized as Helius, and he is often given the epithets Hyperion ("the one above") an ...
to invoke him at night: The prayer is preceded by instructions to call on several angels 21 times as well as the name of the sun. The reader is told to perform the ritual in white garments. The
Mandaean Mandaeans ( ar, المندائيون ), also known as Mandaean Sabians ( ) or simply as Sabians ( ), are an ethnoreligious group who are followers of Mandaeism. They believe that John the Baptist was the final and most important prophet. ...
uthra An uthra or ʿutra ( myz, ࡏࡅࡕࡓࡀ; plural: ʿutri) is a "divine messenger of the light" in Mandaeism. Charles G. Häberl and James F. McGrath translate it as "excellency". Jorunn J. Buckley defines them as "Lightworld beings, called 'u ...
(angel or guardian) Ptahil is mentioned in ''Sefer HaRazim'', listed among other angels who stand on the ninth step of the second firmament.


References

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Sources

*Levy, B. Barry. ''Sepher Ha-Razim'', Unpublished manuscript and English translation, McGill University. *Margalioth, Mordecai. ''Sepher Ha-Razim.'' Jerusalem: Yediot Achronot, 1966. *Morgan, Michael A. ''Sepher Ha-Razim: The Book of Mysteries.'' Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1983. The majority of the information for this article is from this book. *Rebiger, Bill; Schäfer, Peter (eds.). ''Sefer ha-Razim I und II. Das Buch der Geheimnisse'', vol. 1: Edition, vol. 2: Einleitung, Übersetzung und Kommentar. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009. Angels in Judaism Jewish grimoires Kabbalah texts Hebrew-language names