Mystical systems
Moses de León
Direct answer
Moses de León (about 1240 to 1305) was a Spanish kabbalist who put the Zohar into circulation in Castile, and whom most historians regard as its main author.
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At a glance
- Also called
- moses de leon, moshe de leon, moses de leon zohar, who wrote the zohar
- Found in
- Mystical Systems
- Related
- Zohar, Kabbalah, Gershom Scholem, Sefer ha-Bahir
Moses de León (about 1240 to 1305) was a Spanish kabbalist who put the Zohar into circulation in Castile, and whom most historians regard as its main author.
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Did Moses de León write the Zohar?
Moses ben Shem Tov de León lived in Guadalajara and later in Ávila, in the kingdom of Castile. He wrote a number of kabbalistic books in Hebrew under his own name. From about 1280 he also began to hand out, a booklet at a time, portions of an Aramaic work that he said he was copying from an ancient manuscript: the teachings of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, a sage of the second century.
That work is the Zohar. Tradition accepts the attribution to Shimon bar Yochai. Modern scholarship does not. The Zohar's Aramaic has medieval features, it draws on sources later than its supposed date, and its ideas and turns of phrase match those of de León's signed Hebrew books closely.
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What sets Moses de León apart
De León is unusual among suspected pseudepigraphers in that his other books survive to be compared. His Hebrew treatises, dated between 1286 and 1293, quote the Zohar as an ancient source before anyone else does, and share its odd coinages, its mistakes in Aramaic and its favourite images. The Zohar also shows knowledge of medieval Spain and of events and books later than the second century. He seems to have earned part of his living from copying and selling the booklets.
- Lived: about 1240 to 1305, in Castile
- Homes: Guadalajara, then Ávila; died at Arévalo
- Signed works: among them Sefer ha-Rimmon, 1287, and Shekel ha-Kodesh, 1292
- Zohar in circulation: from about 1280, in separate booklets
- Early witness: Isaac of Acre, who enquired in Spain in 1305
- Modern case: Gershom Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, 1941
Often mistaken for something else: Shimon bar Yochai was a second-century sage of Galilee and the hero of the Zohar's narrative; Moses de León was the thirteenth-century Castilian who produced the text in which he speaks.
The story behind Moses de León
The oldest doubt is nearly as old as the book. The kabbalist Isaac of Acre came to Spain in 1305 to look into the matter and found that de León had just died at Arévalo. His account, preserved in a later chronicle, reports that the widow said there had never been an old manuscript and that her husband wrote from his own mind, using a famous name so the work would be valued. Gershom Scholem set out the linguistic case for his authorship in 1941. Later scholars have argued for a circle of writers around him.
Why Moses de León matters
The question of who wrote the Zohar turns on him, and with it the question of whether Kabbalah's central book is ancient or medieval.
How to read Moses de León
His name is used as shorthand for the scholarly dating of the Zohar, and his signed Hebrew works are read as a key to its harder passages.
Moses de León in practice: an example
A reader who asks how old the Zohar is receives two answers, the second century by tradition and the thirteenth by scholarship, and de León is why.
Where readings of Moses de León go wrong
Writing under an ancient name was a recognised convention of his age. Calling it forgery imports a modern standard.
Sources and editorial method
This entry summarizes the tradition in the Almanac's own words; where no source is listed, it is an editorial summary rather than a primary text, and symbolic readings are named as the tradition's, not as fact.
- Source
- The Great Almanac Dictionary
- Category
- Mystical Systems
- Aliases
- moses de leon, moshe de leon, moses de leon zohar, who wrote the zohar, author of the zohar
- Last updated
- 2026-09-26
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Common questions
Did Moses de León write the Zohar?
Most academic scholars think he wrote the greater part of it, perhaps together with others in his circle, in the late thirteenth century. Traditional Kabbalah holds that he only made public a far older work.
Who was Moses de León?
He was a Jewish mystic of Castile, born about 1240, who lived in Guadalajara and Ávila and died in 1305. He wrote Hebrew works on Kabbalah and distributed the first known copies of the Zohar.
Why would he attribute the Zohar to someone else?
Medieval authors often placed new teaching under an ancient name to give it standing. A report from 1305 has his widow say that he did so to secure the work a hearing and a price.
