Quick Answer
Gnosticism and Kabbalah — the Jewish mystical tradition — share striking structural parallels: divine emanations, an unknowable God beyond all names, the problem of evil, and hidden knowledge available only to initiates. Scholars including Gershom Scholem have argued the parallels are not coincidental.
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Quick Facts
- Both traditions describe the divine as emanating downward through a hierarchy of beings
- The Kabbalistic concept of the Sefirot (divine attributes) parallels the Gnostic Aeons of the Pleroma
- The Gnostic Demiurge has some parallels to the Kabbalistic Sitra Achra (the Other Side)
- Both traditions emphasise esoteric knowledge unavailable to ordinary religious practice