Sabbatai Sevi: the mystical messiah, 1626-1676

Messianic longing and expectation, always rife throughout Jewish history, have often found expression in movements prompted by mesianic pretenders, forerunners, or prophets. These manifestations have generally been of short duration and of merely local significance; The only messianic movement to engulf the whole of Jewry ws that aroused by a young kabbalist rabbi from Smyrna, the messiah Sabbatai Sevi and his prophet, Nathan of Gaza, in 1666. Professor Scholem´s detailed and authoritative account of the Sabbatian movement from its inception to the founder´s death not only illuminates an extraordinary phenomenon in Jewish history but is a major contribution to the genral study of messianic movements and their theologies.