At last! The Zohar is online! As it is writ (on the Web page):

Ever since it emerged mysteriously in Castile, Spain toward the end of the 13th century, the Zohar has enthralled, confounded, challenged, and enraptured readers. Composed mostly in lyrical Aramaic, the Zohar is a mosaic of Bible, medieval homily, spiritual fantasy, and imaginative commentary, or midrash, on the Torah written in the form of a mystical novel. In it a group of rabbis wander through the hills of Galilee, discovering and sharing secrets of Torah: at times they interpret the actions of biblical figures, and at other times, they take center stage themselves through their adventures on the road and their encounters with various astonishing characters.

Joseph Zitt, in an email message, explains:

In creating the translation, [Daniel C.] Matt and his crew worked with a large number of manuscripts and previous printings of the Zohar to put together a close-to-definitive edition of the original Aramaic text. Instead of publishing the Aramaic text on paper, they have put it up online as PDF files… In fact, they have each volume up *twice*, once in simple text format, and once with the emendations of the standard printed text underlined. There is also an introduction explaining how and why they were put together, and pointing to the sources.

My Aramaic is a little rusty (that is, I used to know how to spell “Aramaic” with confidence but now I have to look it up), but it is definitely very cool to see the Lit Web get lit up a little bit more.

Categories: misc dw