New from our Research Blog: “How to Do Things with Diagrams? A 13th Century Kabbalistic Experiment with a 12th Century Cosmographic Cycle”

Jewish Kabbalistic writings often construct elaborate systems to assist their metaphysical speculations on the divine realm. Occasionally, these systems are presented through diagrams that map out the structure of divine potencies and the dynamic relationships between these potencies and the created world. The best-known examples are the numerous variations of the theosophical Sefirotic Tree, whose branching structure has come to epitomize the dynamic order of divine entities and powers, (sefirot). Yet the early 13th century Kabbalists also drew on other types of geometric diagrams that were readily available in the scientific and theological environments of the time, namely, the concentric spherical diagram as generally informed by Ptolemaic astronomy. These diagrams, which consisted of ten spheres—the 7 traditional planets, the sphere of fixed stars, the diurnal sphere (Primum Mobile), and, in some cases, the Universal Intellect—were integrated and further modified by Jewish theological and Kabbalistic doctrines of creation.

Kabbalistic texts illustrate how dynamic and adaptive these cosmological models were. So much so, that Kabbalists often integrated elements from markedly different systems, mainly theological or cosmogenic, thereby reconstruing the nature, logic, and order of the cosmic diagrams of the time. One notable case appears in Ginnat Egoz (The Garden of the Nut), a cosmic-Kabbalistic work composed in 1274 by the Castilian Kabbalist Joseph Giqatilla. His text includes a spherical diagram that serves as the structural skeleton of his cosmology ...

This is an excerpt from “How to Do Things with Diagrams? A 13th Century Kabbalistic Experiment with a 12th Century Cosmographic Cycle" by Tzvi Schoenberg, Ph.D., Arts and Letters Provost Postdoctoral Fellow. Read the full piece.