Primeval evil in Kabbalah

de Moshe Idel

"Primeval Evil analyzes the various versions of a theory maintaining the Kabbalistic visions as to the precedence of evil before good, within the divine realm and in the lower dimensions of reality. It proposes a source for some of the theories of evil in medieval Kabbalah, in the Zurvanic version of Zoroastrism and their reverberations, which is different from the scholarly assumptions as to the influence of Gnosticism on Kabbalah. A series of pre-Kabbalistic, Kabbalistic and Hasidic texts have been addressed, in print and in manuscripts, in order to substantiate the understanding of these theories are related to visions of the divine as all-encompassing, and perfect or perfectible."