Who wrote the Zohar and when was it written ?
The Sefer Zohar or “Book of Splendour” is supposed to be the most authoritative Kabbalistic work, but this massive series of books is so obscure and symbolic as to be practically incomprehensible. Although traditionally said to date back to the first century C.E., in its present form the Zohar is most likely of 13th Century Spanish vintage, compiled by the Kabbalistic writer Moses de Leon (c.1240-1305) from a combination of his own ideas and contemporary Kabbalistic elements [Gershom Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, chapter 5]. Moses de Leon was a brilliant homilectical rather than a systematic thinker. He was concerned not with formulating a coherent metaphysical system, but with the elaboration and interpretation of verses of scripture from the Torah, often in the form of obscure mystical allegorizations [Scholem, Ibid, p.158]. It was this rich mass of imagery and allegory that the Zohar contains that served as the inspiration for all subsequent generations of Kabbalists. <
