Zohar:

The Zohar is a very complicated text to outsiders. But has some of its reputation been assigned by scholars? Isaiah Tishby was an English-speaking scholar who produced an early version of a Zoharic anthology. Gershom Scholem was a Hebrew-speaking scholar who made pioneering investigations into the study of Jewish mysticism In general, the main thrust of the arguments espoused by Isaiah Tishby and Gershom Scholem are opposed, as far as their views regarding the authorship of the Zohar. Both scholarly articles begin with a lengthy schema, or description of the parts of the Zohar - so that section is remarkably the same in both authors. But their views of the composition of the Zohar itself come from different directions. Tishby seems to believe that that the Zohar is a confused jumble of kabbalistic strands that somehow found their way into a non-coherent system in the Zohar Ḥadash in the 14th century, which was then added to by other sections. Tishby describes the Zohar as having "many drawbacks," the foremost of which is: "Different topics are jumbled together and subjects that have practically nothing to do with one another are set side by side without any internal connection between them. At many points we jump from one subject to another, without any logical transition or rational continuity" (7), which are more prominent in the sections Raya Mehemna and Tikkunei ha-Zohar. He comments: "In these sections are signs of a basic defect in the actual thought structure" (7). Tishby also refers to its "piecemeal"  style, which "seriously obscures its ideas." The reader of Tishby's introduction is left with an entirely mystified, confused introduction to the Zohar. By contrast, Scholem sees the Zohar as a unified, coherent, literary whole by a single author, which has remarkable consistency in its use of linguistic features, despite their particularity. Scholem is arguing against the idea that it is "a multitude of writings of apparently very different character, loosely assembled under the title of 'Zohar'" (159). For example, Scholem praises the section Idra Rabba, or "Great Assembly": "The composition of this part is architecturally perfect; the totality of the speeches constitutes a systematic whole" (160). Scholem especially brings attention to its unified emotional effect: "As the unravelling of the mystery progresses, the participants are increasingly overcome by ecstasy, and in the final dramatic apotheosis, three of the[ rabbi's followers] die in a state of ecstatic trance" (160). In the view of Scholem, the Zohar is a literary composition which is masterfully put together to achieve maximal mystical and emotional impact. Scholem does make the caveat that the sections Raya Mehemna and Tikkunei ha-Zohar which Tishby calls out, were likely authored by another author in imitation of the main part. He refers to its "deliberate imitation of the uniform language of the other parts" (168). Elsewhere, Scholem criticizes imperfections in the Zohar's Aramaic, which he considers thirteenth-century Hebrew in disguise (165), but notes its consistent nature throughout (163) and its "rainbow picture of linguistic eclecticism, the constituent elements of which, however, remain constant throughout. The syntax is extremely simple, almost monotonous" (164). He elsewhere refers to the author as an "omnivorous reader gifted with an excellent memory" (172). Personally, Scholem's view inspires me to study the Zohar at a greater depth, whereas Tishby's introduction leaves me confused over the jumble of texts I am about to investigate. Isaiah Tishby, The wisdom of the Zohar (Oxford, 1989), 1-30 Gershom Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (Schocken, 1995), 156-204