The Sword of Moses, an Ancient Book of Magic. From an Unique Manuscript. With Introduction, Translation, an Index of Mystical Names, and a Facsimile by M. Gaster.

by Moses Gaster

This is an apocryphal Hebrew book of magic edited by Moses Gaster in 1896 from a 13th or 14th century manuscript from his own collection, formerly MS Gaster 78, now London, British Library MS Or. 10678. Gaster assumed that the text predates the 11th century, based on a letter by Rav Hai Gaon (939-1038) which mentions the book alongside the Sefer ha-Yashar[disambiguation needed], and that it may even date to as early as the first four centuries CE. Besides the medieval manuscript used by Gaster, a short fragment of the text survives in Cod. Oxford 1531. A new critical edition was printed in 1997 by the Israeli scholar Yuval Harari based on a variant text found in another manuscript.

Genres: Occult

88 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1970

About the author

Moses Gaster (17 September 1856 – 5 March 1939) was a Romanian-born British scholar, the Hakham of the Spanish and Portuguese Jewish congregation, London, and a Hebrew linguist. He was the father of Jack and Theodor Gaster and the grandfather of Marghanita Laski. He was also son-in-law to Michael Friedländer and father-in-law to Neville Laski.

Reviews

[Juzám Djinn · Rating 3 out of 5]

A curios Hebrew grimoire, this is a reprint of the original English translation by Rabbi Dr. Gaster. The majority of text contains very long lists of magical Hebrew Names used as the praxis. Although I found "The Sword of Moses" to be not very practical, it was interesting after a fasion.

[Dr. Ursula Williams · Rating 3 out of 5]

Informational, could be better explained but ok as an overview

Informational, could be better explained but ok as an overview. The book does state that it is an unedited sample so maybe an updated one will come soo .

[Olu Adewumi]

Magic to make money

[Gwadue Hough · Rating 4 out of 5]

Easy to find