Karaite Literature Reader

Karaite Literature turns to The Angel Who Created The World.

This idea wasn't just some random thought. There was a Jewish sect called the Magharians – the "cave dwellers" – who strongly believed this. We know about them because their books were, well, found in a cave. They lived around the time of the Sadducees, during the Second Temple period. They felt the Sadducees were making a mistake by ascribing human-like qualities to God. The Magharians believed that God is so beyond our comprehension that any attempt to describe Him in human terms is a no-no.

So, what did they do? They came up with this idea of a super-angel. As they saw it, whenever the Torah speaks of God in a way that sounds… well, human, it's actually referring to this angel. They felt it was perfectly reasonable for God to send a messenger and say, "This is My messenger, and his position among you is My position, and his word and command My word and command, and his appearance My appearance." It's a powerful concept!

Think about those passages in Exodus – like when it says "Yahweh is a man of war" (Exod. 15:3), or when Moses and the elders "saw the God of Israel. and there was under His feet the likeness of a pavement of sapphire stone" (Exod. 24:9-10). For the Magharians, that wasn't God directly; it was this pre-existent angel!

We even see hints of this idea elsewhere. The Book of Jubilees 1:27 says, "And God said to the angel of the presence: 'Write for Moses from the beginning of Creation till My sanctuary has been built among them for all eternity.'" And what about the Angel of the Lord? Remember (Exodus 23:20-21)? "I am sending an angel before you to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place that I have made ready. Pay heed to him, and obey him. Do not defy him, for he will not pardon your offenses, since My Name is in him." The Magharians likely identified their angel with this figure, too.

Now, some late antique traditions outside Judaism developed similar ideas about a secondary creator figure who acts in opposition to the true God. But in this Jewish telling, for the Magharians, this angel is working God's will. It's more like God delegating a very important task.

According to Kitab al-Anwar w'al-Mar'akib and Kitab al-Milal wa'al-Nihal, Karaite texts that discuss this, God selected a certain angel from all those who attend upon Him, to confer His name upon him, and to proclaim this angel as His emissary, whose place in the world was God's place, and whose word was God's word.

The Magharians' belief in an angel who could take on human form was a source of theological controversy. The founder of the sect eventually became disillusioned with certain interpretations and reaffirmed traditional Jewish teachings.

It's a complex story, isn't it? At its heart, the Magharians' idea stemmed from a deep reverence for God. They wanted to protect Him from being reduced to human terms. But in doing so, they arguably elevated the angel to an almost divine status. Did they inadvertently diminish God's role? That's something to ponder. Perhaps this highlights the constant tension in religious thought: how do we understand the divine without limiting it, without making it too… human?

Many believe the answer is Hebrew.

It's a pretty powerful idea. That the very letters we use to write down these words are echoes of something ancient, something divine. A primordial tongue.

Tree of Souls explores this idea, particularly the notion that Hebrew isn’t just a language we use here on Earth. It's the language of the heavens, the language of the angels themselves.

This wasn't just some fringe belief, either. It was a central assumption in rabbinic literature. We're talking about a bedrock principle, the idea that Hebrew is a lashon ha-kodesh, a sacred tongue. for a second. The very sounds and shapes of the Hebrew alphabet, the alef-bet, are thought to resonate with a deeper spiritual reality. It’s a language spoken not only here in our world, but also in the celestial realms.

Even the Karaites, a Jewish movement known for accepting the Bible while rejecting the Talmud, held this belief. This is evidenced in Kitab al-riyad w'al-Hada'ik. This shows us just how widespread and deeply ingrained this idea was within Jewish thought.

So, next time you see a Hebrew letter, or hear the words of the Torah chanted, remember that you're not just encountering a language. You're potentially tapping into something far older, something closer to the very source of creation. A language that connects us not only to each other, but perhaps, to the divine. Is it any wonder that Jewish mystics have spent centuries contemplating the power and secrets held within these ancient letters?