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Moses de Leon

1240 – 1305 Castilian (Sephardic Jewish) Kabbalist, writer

The figure most scholars credit with composing the Zohar, the central text of Kabbalah.

Religion
Judaism (Kabbalah)
Affiliations
Guadalajara and Avila, Castile

Moses de Leon circulated the Zohar in the late 13th century, presenting it as the ancient teaching of the 2nd-century sage Shimon bar Yochai. Modern scholarship, led by Gershom Scholem, argues that de Leon himself was the main author. Traditional Kabbalists still hold the work to be far older, so its authorship remains contested.

In the timeline