Did Rashbi Write the Zohar?

Question

In my experience, many religious Jews think that Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai wrote the book we have today called the Zohar.

The Zohar is a Jewish work of mysticism that was published in the 13th century. It was said at the time to have been written by Rabbi Simeon ben Yohai in the second century, while he hid in a cave from the Romans with his son Eliezer. The manuscript then disappeared from history only to resurface without explanation a millennium later in the hands of R Moses ben Shem-Tov de Leon. However, during and ever since its publication there has been controversy over this works authenticity, both scholarly and anecdotal, including statements by the publisher, Moses ben Shem-Tov de Leon's wife as noted in the following excerpt from the Jewish Encyclopedia:

a rich man of Avila, named Joseph, offered [de Leon's] widow, who had been left without means, a large sum of money for the original from which her husband had made the copy; and she then confessed that her husband himself was the author of the work. She had asked him several times, she said, why he had chosen to credit his own teachings to another, and he had always answered that doctrines put into the mouth of the miracle-working Simeon ben Yohai would be a rich source of profit.

Furthermore, included in the Zohar there seem to be references to historical events (such as the Crusades in Zohar II, 32a and III, 212b), Hebrew orthographic conventions (eg. Zohar I 24b, III 65a), Spanish words (eg. Esnoga), and names of rabbis (eg. Rav Hamnuna Sava, Rav Yeva Sava, R' Hezkiah bar Rav, etc) which all appear to post-date Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai.

What are the detailed historical arguments supporting or denying Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai's authorship of the Zohar?

(Note this question does not seek names of authorities or non-authorities who personally support or deny Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai's authorship. It seeks detailed historical arguments.)

@DoubleAA, doesn't the question post still already contain an answer to the "denying" side of the final question? Perhaps it should explain more clearly what it's still looking for. — Isaac Moses, Dec 30 '13 at 19:45
@IsaacMoses I think it includes details supporting the existence of controversy. (The existence of controversy is a very important premise to the question.) — Double AA, Dec 30 '13 at 19:46
I think we went through this here somewhere (I remember Alex quoted a chabad.org article about this) — ertert3terte, Dec 30 '13 at 20:58
@ray I don't know what you mean by "really answer this". He didn't ask for the actual truth. He asked for arguments. Even millions of people can be fooled sometimes. It is up to us to evaluate the evidence. There is no coercive proof of anything historical (with the possible exception of the existence of yourself). — Double AA, Dec 30 '13 at 21:02
No one claims that he put pen to paper (quill to parchment?) on the Zohar. Given that Mishna wasn't written down until much later, that shouldn't be a surprise (the traditional claim is Rav Hamnuna Saba, I believe). But @ShmuelBrin is right, the opposing opinion (to the one of the Jewish encyclopedia - including the alledged spanish word existing in Onkles) was covered here at some point. — Yishai, Dec 30 '13 at 21:03
@Yishai, this (not the same thing) is the closest I could find in the [tag:zohar] tag. — Isaac Moses, Dec 30 '13 at 21:07
@Yishai I don't think it ever was. There has been discussion of Sefirot and Shittuf, but I don't think anyone has presented back and forth about the history of the Zohar. — Double AA, Dec 30 '13 at 21:19
http://www.talkreason.org/articles/zohar.cfm has much better, more detailed arguments than the Chabad article. He covers everything from the usual at-the-time witnesses, then moves on to later(next several generations) historical researchers' efforts. He also goes on to show how historic error details and the topography of the Land of Israel, as written in the Zohar, could NOT have been written by somebody in the 2nd or 3rd centuries CE..also some of the Aramaic language errors....lots of information! — Gary, Dec 31 '13 at 02:31
@Gary A post highlighting the contents of and differences between those two articles would seem like a good answer. — Double AA, Dec 31 '13 at 04:16
@Double AA - thank you! I was thinking the same thing...had surgery last week, please bear with my slow reaction times...plus I like to root around a bit, perusin' away and seeing if there are any better ones to also use.. — Gary, Dec 31 '13 at 04:23
@Gary Have a Refuah Sheleimah! Don't worry. Personal health before Mi Yodeya is quite reasonable :) — Double AA, Dec 31 '13 at 04:25
@ray and fair warning: I am about to clean up the comments here again. The purpose of comments is to improve the post they're attached to, not to have long or tangential conversations like this. The place to discuss site operation is [meta]; if you have a question or complaint about how something was handled here please bring it up so that all can provide input. The mods are trying to do what's right for the site, guided by what the community wants as expressed on meta; if we mess up (as everybody does) we want to fix it. But there, please, not here. — Monica Cellio, Jan 03 '14 at 17:05
prof. marc shapiro - https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9qDT_J6e1NHZjFiOTIzMDUtNDg0Zi00NTY3LWJhYjItOGViZDBmMzMxNWQ2/view — user8735, Feb 06 '15 at 16:57
An excellent resource is Shadal's vikkuach al hakkabalah which is presented as a debate between a pro-kabbalist and anti- kabbalist, where the authenticity of the Zohar is a central point. Much if not all of it has been translated on the parshablog. — mevaqesh, Apr 09 '15 at 00:36

score 4 · Answer 1 · edited Dec 30 '13 at 22:40

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The traditional argument is explored and defended at length here and the subsequent links in the series. No one claims that the entirety of the Zohar as we have it was written by Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai (and no one says that he actually wrote as opposed to taught orally any of it).

It would seem rather repetitive to restate all the arguments there, but the real bottom line is that its authenticity is attested to not due to a clear chain of custody of the text (of which there is no single such chain) but due to the Kabbalists contemporary to its dissemination attesting to the authorship claims (for reasons unknown due to the writings on the question being lost) and their analyzing its contents and finding them acceptable. The rest consists of refuting the arguments to the contrary.

edited Dec 30 '13 at 22:40

Double AA

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How does analysis of its contents showing it is a Kabbalistic work attest to its authorship? (Also, what about those at the time who rejected it?) – Double AA Dec 30 '13 at 21:43
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"at length" That link (and the nexts parts of that article) doesn't address most of the problems which were mentioned in the question. There is no discussion of the crusades, Hebrew vowels, esnoga... Overall I found that series to be handwaving and not thorough. – Double AA Dec 30 '13 at 21:44
Which kabbalists of his time? – avi Dec 30 '13 at 21:46
It doesn't address crusade by name, it just speaks about the later authorship of other portions of the work, so the idea that showing one area of later authorship invalidates the traditional claim just shows a non-understanding of the traditional claim. – Yishai Dec 30 '13 at 21:50
The question understood the traditional claim to be "that Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai wrote the book we have today called the Zohar." If you wish to challenge that assumption you should clarify in your post what the traditional claim actually is (not just what it isn't). – Double AA Dec 30 '13 at 21:51
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Regardless of what name you want to assign to the position presented in the cited article, this answer post should include a great deal more specifics of what the article actually says and how that relates to the question at hand. The more work you make the reader do to understand how your answer addresses the question, the less useful your answer is. – Isaac Moses Dec 30 '13 at 21:54
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@DoubleAA, I really have no intention of re-writing a series of articles amounting to thousands of words (all for a question that should be a duplicate anyway). If you think it is more appropriate as a link buried in comments (of which there are already over 10) on the question rather than an answer, go ahead and change it, with my blessing. I was just trying to provide some information to the questioner that might help them in their search. – Yishai Dec 30 '13 at 21:59
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The most important part you mentioned isn't in the link. Which kabbalists of his time? – avi Dec 30 '13 at 22:01
I think this answer post provides enough of a summary of the cited article that it's not strictly "link-only," and I'd therefore recommend against mod- or community-deletion. I stand by my above comment about its quality, though. As @DoubleAA said, there's a lot of room for useful summary, way short of rewriting the entire work. – Isaac Moses Dec 30 '13 at 22:05
@Avi, from the first article at the end: "there is evidence that Rabbi Isaac of Acco himself accepted that the Zohar was written by Rashbi and his disciples" (a talmid of the Ramban as described earlier). – Yishai Dec 30 '13 at 22:09
Yishai there is also evidence that issac of acco did not accept it. But you used the plural form, so are there others? – avi Dec 30 '13 at 22:36
@Avi, all the Kabbalists that we have a record of accepting it, are accepting it based on that type of analysis. Issac of Acco was the closest to the events that we have (incomplete) records of. But I think the point that I was making is that it isn't based on the chain of custody of the manuscript, but rather accepting what it says based on its otherwise verifiable harmony with the teachings of Kabbalah. There is an overemphasis on the second point, when really my emphasis was the first half. – Yishai Dec 30 '13 at 22:40
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Basically, we have no idea why anyone believed R de Leon. We just know that some of them did, and their view became significantly more popular. The fact that the views conformed to the then current understanding of Kabbalah may attest to the validity of the content, but says nothing about the authorship as de Leon was familiar with then current kabbalistic ideas. – Double AA Dec 30 '13 at 22:41
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I love the story of R Yosef HaLevi's "test"! All that proves is that R Moses kept a master copy of "the Zohar"(however/wherever its origin). How could reasoning, intelligent men take that as "proof"? – Gary Dec 31 '13 at 01:51
@Gary, it is about what the opposite would have shown. Having passed that easily administered test, he could investigate further. – Yishai Dec 31 '13 at 03:29
@Yishai - according to the talkreason.org article's author, R Yosef was one of R Moses' buddies, in on the con...along with several of the other "swear by Heaven & Earth" testifiers... – Gary Dec 31 '13 at 04:02
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@Gary, I started feeling so sorry for the straw men that article was beating that I stopped reading it at one point. If you want to refute a claim you have to understand it. That article doesn't. I'll leave others to the lengthy debate. One point though, I don't think you read further than the first article in the Chabad.org series, where he gets into a lot of the same issues as the talkreason.org article (although it isn't as thorough). – Yishai Dec 31 '13 at 11:33
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What makes the chabad article's argument more traditional? Both sides have a history in Jewish tradition. – Double AA Dec 31 '13 at 15:39
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@Yishai If you are going to continue to label the view most people think is the "traditional" one a straw man you ought at least tell us what the correct "traditional" view is (and how you know that)! – Double AA Dec 31 '13 at 16:19
@DoubleAA, no one (as I have already stated) thinks that 100% of what is written in the Zohar came from Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai personally. I've said it multiple times just on this page. That is in the Chabad.org article. If you want a different term than traditional, go ahead and propose one. – Yishai Dec 31 '13 at 16:33
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@Yishai Stop telling me what is not the view in question and tell me what is!!! – Double AA Dec 31 '13 at 16:40
@DoubleAA, it is defined in the article I linked. – Yishai Dec 31 '13 at 16:45
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a scathing critique of the linked article http://parsha.blogspot.com/2011/07/guardians-and-authenticity-of-zohar.html – Double AA Nov 24 '17 at 18:33

Did Rashbi Write the Zohar?

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