Note 41 — III.
Reading edition
1767. Whilst the Jews were thus shaken in their opinion about the antiquity of the Sohar, learned Christians both on the Continent and in England maintained that Simon b. Jochai was the author of the Bible of the Kabbalah, and quoted its sentiments in corroboration of their peculiar views. Thus Dr. Gill, the famous Hebraist and commentator, in his work on the Antiquity of the Hebrew Language, adduces passages from the Sohar to shew that the Hebrew vowel points were known A.D. 120, at which time he tells us “lived Simon ben Jochai, a disciple of R. Akiba, author of the Zohar.”41