Sepher Ha-Razim

In 1963, while studying Kabbalistic texts at Oxford, Mordecai Margalioth happened upon a Genizah fragment which gave a magical praxis to assist one in winning at the racetrack. Recalling similar formulas from the Genizah collection and elsewhere, he began a detailed study of the preserved fragments of magical literature. He postulated that these fragments may have all come from a common source which could be reconstructed. His research led to the publication of Sepher Ha-Razim in 1966.

The published text is eclectic. No single document available to Margalioth contained all of the material which was to appear in the final text. Enough was available, however, that he felt confident that he had successfully reconstructed a magical handbook from the early Talmudic period. Since its publication, SHR has proven a valuable source of information for studies pertaining to magic in antiquity and for studies relating to Jewish life in the first centuries CE.

Margalioth was an excellent textual scholar. Even though additional texts have come to light since the publication of SHR, his original work is an exceptional piece of scholarship which demands wider circulation and use among scholars interested in the Judaisms of the Hellenistic age. No doubt a re-editing of SHR is needed in the future. For the present, I hope the scholarly community will find this annotated translation of the Margalioth text a valuable tool for further study.