This study examines the thought of Guillaume Postel (1510-1581), a French religious thinker who relied on Jewish Kabbalah and its mystical understanding of gender to argue that a female messiah had arrived who would heal the political and religious conflicts of sixteenth-century Europe.

This book deals with aspects of the gender imaging of God in a variety of medieval kabbalistic sources. It provides the key to understanding the phenomenological structures of mystical experience as well as the thematic correlation of esotericism and eroticism that is central to the kabbalah. The author examines the role of gender utilizing current feminist studies and cultural anthropology. He explores the themes of the feminization of the Torah, the correlation of circumcision and vision of God, the phallocentric understanding of divine creation as a process of inscription mythologized as an act of sexual self-gratification, and the phenomenon of gender-crossing in kabbalistic myth and ritual. Collectively, the studies explore in great depth the androcentric phallocentrism that is characteristic of medieval Jewish mysticism.

This book not only publicizes Jewish texts that are indisputably authoritative, but also enables people who do not have the skills or resources to access this experience on their own to directly encounter kabbalistic source material. Its luminous wisdom is sure to inspire a respect and affection for the Torah and its traditions. In Kabbalistic Writings on the Nature of Masculine and Feminine, the texts speak for themselves. Their authoritative voices are the soul and might of this work. As proof texts they verify statements made in their name, and as holy texts they transform all who take them to heart.

In The Feminine Messiah, Ruth Kara-Ivanov Kaniel explores the theosophical revolution that is reflected by the identification of the figure of King David and the image of the divine presence, the Shekhina, in medieval kabbalistic literature.

This is a study of the religious controversy that broke out with Martin Luther, from the vantage of church property. The book shows how acceptance of confiscation was won, and how theological advice was essential to the success of what is sometimes called a crucial if early stage of confessional state-building.

In the wake of new interest in alchemy as more significant than a bizarre aberration in rational Western European culture, this collection examines both alchemical and medical discourses in the larger context of early modern Europe. How do early scientific discourses infiltrate other cultural domains such as literature, philosophy, court life, and the conduct of households? How do these new contexts deflect scientific pursuits into new directions, and allow a larger participation in the elaboration of scientific methods and perspectives? Might there have been a scientific subculture, particularly surrounding alchemy, which allowed women to participate in scientific pursuits long before they were admitted in an investigative capacity into official academic settings? This volume poses those questions, as a starting point for a broader discussion of scientific subcultures and their relationship to the restructuring and questioning of gender roles.

The first comprehensive account of Protestant and Catholic attitudes toward Jews and Judaism in the European Reformation ​In this rich, wide-ranging, and meticulously researched account, Kenneth Austin examines the attitudes of various Christian groups in the Protestant and Catholic Reformations towards Jews, the Hebrew language, and Jewish learning. Martin Luther’s writings are notorious, but Reformation attitudes were much more varied and nuanced than these might lead us to believe. This book has much to tell us about the Reformation and its priorities—and has important implications for how we think about religious pluralism more broadly.

This volume brings together leading representatives of the recent debate about the persistence of kabbalah in the modern world. It breaks new ground for a better understanding of the role of kabbalah in modern religious, intellectual, and political discourse.