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original to the Bahir, developed by its author, until we have proof of an earlier source.
    In the middle of the twentieth century—at the time that Scholem and others categorized the Book Bahir, and to some extent the kabbalah in general as including central gnostic characteristics—Gnosticism acquired the dimensions of a world religion, parallel in impact and significance to those of Judaism and Christianity. One of the most forceful expressions of 22
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    this view was the great monograph on the subject written by Scholem’s friend Hans Jonas, which was translated, in an abbreviated form, from German into English as The Gnostic Religion (1958). This was the culmination of a long historical-theological development in German thought, best expressed by the views of the German Protestant scholar and theologian Rudolph Bultmann, who considered that Gnosticism included the roots of Christianity. In 1945, when a library of ancient theological works in Coptic was discovered in Nag Hamadi in Egypt, it was interpreted as being a library of ancient gnostic texts, and seemed to validate Bultmann’s and Jonas’s descriptions of the religion.
    Thus, twentieth-century scholarship transformed Gnosticism from a common term that described heretical Christian sects, as presented by the church fathers in the second century CE and later, into a vast religion that served as a source for many Christian and Jewish spiritual phenomena and several medieval heretical movements, includinge the Cathars in Southern France. Many scholars in this field attributed the origins of Gnosticism to ancient Judaism, insisting that there was an ancient, pre-Christian Jewish Gnosticism. Scholem’s attitude was greatly influenced by these concepts. He designated the Hekhalot literature as Jewish Gnosticism in a book on the subject published in 1960, and he connected the Book Bahir to this realm. Other scholars tried to establish connections between the early kabbalah and the Christian Chatharic movement in Southern France.
    These concepts no longer seem valid. Recent scholarly work on ancient Gnosticism—including that of Michael Williams, Karen King, and Elaine Pagels—denies the existence of such a “third religion.” These scholars describe the sects so designated as an expression of the variety and complexity of early Christianity, and reject the anachronistic castigation of “heresy” when discussing them. It seems today that the image of Gnosticism that was prominent in the mid-twentieth century is more an 23
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    expression of the prejudices and speculations of modern scholars than a reflection of historical reality. The Nag Hamadi library includes treatises concerning many directions and emphases of Christian thought in the early centuries, rather than the expression of one religious worldview. No historical connection has been demonstrated between the ancient gnostic sects and medieval spiritual movements.
    A negative can never be proven, yet after a century and a half of searching for Jewish Gnosticism it has to be stated that no evidence of the existence of such a phenomenon has been found. The only basis for speculation in this direction has been the existence of a gnostic religion in the Christian context in ancient times and the Middle Ages; when doubts are cast concerning the existence of pre-Christian and Christian Gnosticism, there is no reason to use this term concerning Jewish phenomena. The assumption that the Book Bahir was influenced either by ancient Jewish gnostic traditions or by Christian Gnosticism, ancient or medieval (that is, Catharic), has not been proven by any textual or terminological evidence. As far as we know today, the mythical concepts that make the Book Bahir a new, radical phenomenon in Jewish spirituality were originated by the author of that book. If so, the kabbalah has to be seen as an innovative Jewish spiritual