The Shi’ur Qomah () or Dimensions of the Body is a
midrash
''Midrash'' (;["midrash"]
. ''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. ; or ''midrashot' ...
ic text that is part of the
hekhalot literature. It purports to record, in
anthropomorphic terms, the secret names and precise measurements of God's corporeal limbs and parts. The majority of the text is recorded in the form of sayings or teachings that the angel
Metatron revealed to the
tanna Rabbi Ishmael, who transmitted it to his students and his contemporary,
Rabbi Akiva. It is also an
exegetical analysis of
Song of Songs
The Song of Songs (), also called the Canticle of Canticles or the Song of Solomon, is a Biblical poetry, biblical poem, one of the five ("scrolls") in the ('writings'), the last section of the Tanakh. Unlike other books in the Hebrew Bible, i ...
5:11-16 and proclaims that anyone who studies it is guaranteed a portion in
the World to Come.
Provenance and interpretation
Currently the text exists only in fragmentary form, and scholars have debated how to date it appropriately. Modern academic scholars of Jewish mysticism such as
Gershom Scholem think that it is from “either the Tannaitic or the early
Amoraic period.” However, in the 12th century, the rationalist Jewish philosopher
Maimonides
Moses ben Maimon (1138–1204), commonly known as Maimonides (, ) and also referred to by the Hebrew acronym Rambam (), was a Sephardic rabbi and Jewish philosophy, philosopher who became one of the most prolific and influential Torah schola ...
declared the text to be a
Byzantine
The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...
forgery. Maimonides also believed that the text was so heretical and contrary to proper Jewish belief that it
should be burned.
Saadia Gaon
Saʿadia ben Yosef Gaon (892–942) was a prominent rabbi, Geonim, gaon, Jews, Jewish philosopher, and exegesis, exegete who was active in the Abbasid Caliphate.
Saadia is the first important rabbinic figure to write extensively in Judeo-Arabic ...
also expressed doubts about the origin of the text, and stated that “since it is not found in either
Mishna or
Talmud
The Talmud (; ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of Haskalah#Effects, modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cen ...
, and since we have no way of establishing whether or not it represents the words of Rabbi Ishmael; perhaps someone else pretended to speak in his name.” Nonetheless, in the case that the text were somehow proven to be genuine, Saadia wrote that it would have to be understood in line with his “theory of 'created
glory,'" which explains the prophetic
theophanies as visions not of God Himself but of a luminous
reatedsubstance.”
Moses Narboni also wrote a philosophic work about the text entitled ''Iggeret ʿal-Shiʿur Qomah'' ( "Epistle on Shi’ur Qomah"), wherein he dismisses the blatant anthropomorphisms of Shi'ur Qomah as speaking strictly metaphorically. Rabbi Narboni’s work in the Iggeret is a “meditation on God, Measure of all existing things. It is based on
Abraham ibn Ezra's commentary on
Exodus, and, with the aid of biblical and rabbinical passages, studies two kinds of knowledge: God's knowledge of his creatures, called knowledge of the Face; and His creatures’ knowledge of God, called knowledge of the Back (an allusion to Exodus 33:23).”
[A History of Jewish Philosophy in the Middle Ages. Colette Sirat. Published by Cambridge University Press, 1990. Pg, 334.]
See also
*
Jewish mysticism
*
Heresy in Judaism
*
Medieval Jewish Philosophy
*
Moses Taku
References
External links
*{{usurped,
Shi'ur Qomah - שיעור קומה} Hebrew, p. 75-84.
English Translation
By Joseph Dan
Midrashim
Kabbalah texts