Statement

One of the earliest Kabbalistic works was the strange, obscure Sefer ha-Bahir ('Book of Clarity', ironically), composed in twelfth-century Provence in the guise of an ancient midrash on each Bible verse. For all its obscurity it had a large effect on later Kabbalistic literature: it listed ten 'potencies' of God, matching the ten 'Let there be' phrases of the creation story, an idea Kabbalah later developed into the sefirot.

References

1. p. 205

   supports · main text · ch. 7

   Efron, Lehmann and Weitzman. The Jews: A History. 3rd edition. New York and Abingdon: Routledge, 2019.

   Verification anchor recorded · checked against the page text

2. p. 205

   supports · main text · ch. 7

   Efron, Lehmann and Weitzman. The Jews: A History. 3rd edition. New York and Abingdon: Routledge, 2019.

   Verification anchor recorded · checked against the page text