Yossi Chajes (University of Haifa): Christian Kabbalah, Jewish Kabbalah: The Diagrams of Christian Knorr von Rosenroth’s Kabbalah denudata

This lecture will highlight the late seventeenth-century convergence of Jewish & Christian expressions of Kabbalah in the work of Christian Knorr von Rosenroth. Special attention will be given to Knorr’s extensive anthology of diagrammatic materials. These constitute something of a Septuagint of (Jewish) kabbalistic ilanot (arboreal diagrams) of the period, as Knorr’s collection preserves no few exemplars that predate the earliest extant manuscripts and printings by Jews. We will also explore the subsequent Jewish adoption of diagrammatic materials fashioned by Knorr himself.