Note 13 — II.

Besides the language of the Book Jetzira and the train of ideas therein enunciated, as the erudite Zunz rightly remarks, shew that this treatise belongs to the Geonim period, i.e., about the ninth century of the Christian era, when it first became known.13 The fabrication of this pseudograph was evidently suggested by the fact that the Talmud mentions some treatises on the Creation, denominated ‏הלכות יצריה‎ and ‏ספר יצירה‎ (Sanhedrim 65 b; 67 b) which “R. Chanina and R. Oshaja studied every Friday, whereby they produced a calf three years old and ate it;”14 and whereby R. Joshua ben Chananja declared he could take fruit and instantly produce the trees which belong to them. (Jerusalem Sanhedrim, cap. vii. ad finem.15) Indeed Dr. Chwolson of Petersburg has shown in his treatise “on the Remnants of the ancient Babylonian Literature in Arabic translations,” that the ancient Babylonians laid it down as a maxim that if a man were minutely and carefully to observe the process of nature, he would be able to imitate nature and produce sundry creatures. He would not only be able to create plants and metals, but even living beings. These artificial productions the Babylonians call ‏תולידאת‎ productions or ‏אבונאת‎ formations. Gutami, the author of the Agricultura Nabat, who lived about 1400 B.C., devoted a long chapter to the doctrine of artificial productions. The ancient sorcerer Ankebuta declares, in his work on artificial productions, that he created a man, and shows how he did it; but he confesses that the human being was without language and reason, that he could not eat, but simply opened and closed his eyes. This and many other fragments adds R—, from whose communication we quote, show that there were many works in Babylon which treated on the artificial productions of plants, metals, and living beings, and that the Book Jetzira, mentioned in the Talmud, was most probably such a Babylonian document.16