{
  "meta": {
    "schema_version": "1.2",
    "endpoint": "/api/sources/sefer-yetzirah/index.json"
  },
  "work": {
    "slug": "sefer-yetzirah",
    "name": "Sefer Yetzirah (Book of Formation)",
    "stream": "egyptian-hebrew",
    "epoch_reflected": "egypto-chaldean",
    "epoch_written": "greco-latin",
    "form": "mystical",
    "tradition": "Jewish (Kabbalistic — earliest)",
    "author": "Anonymous (Hebrew mystic, redaction contested 3rd–6th c. CE)",
    "year_approx": 300,
    "note": "The shortest and earliest of the foundational Kabbalistic texts — a brief treatise on the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet and the ten Sefirot as creative principles. William Wynn Westcott's 1887 translation; redaction date contested (3rd–6th c. CE).",
    "books_slug": "westcott--sepher-yetzirah",
    "books_slugs": null,
    "has_project_translation": false,
    "steiner_loci": []
  },
  "parents": [],
  "translation": {
    "title": null,
    "author": null,
    "source": null
  },
  "chapters": [
    {
      "num": 1,
      "slug": "00-chapter-1",
      "title": "Chapter I — The Thirty-Two Paths",
      "words": 700,
      "url": "/sources/sefer-yetzirah/00-chapter-1/",
      "api": "/api/sources/sefer-yetzirah/00-chapter-1.json",
      "project_translation": false,
      "subtitle": "The Sefirot and the alphabet as paths of wisdom",
      "blurb": "Opens the cosmogony: Yah, the Lord of Hosts, established the world through Sefer (number/Sefirot), Sippur (text), and Sefar (the letters). Introduces the ten Sefirot and the twenty-two letters as the thirty-two paths through which God formed all."
    },
    {
      "num": 2,
      "slug": "01-chapter-ii",
      "title": "Chapter II — The Ten Sefirot",
      "words": 266,
      "url": "/sources/sefer-yetzirah/01-chapter-ii/",
      "api": "/api/sources/sefer-yetzirah/01-chapter-ii.json",
      "project_translation": false,
      "subtitle": "The decade of ineffable existences",
      "blurb": "The ten Sefirot are described as ten numerations without substance — beginning and end conjoined as flame is bound to coal. The directions, dimensions, and the depths of the five worlds."
    },
    {
      "num": 3,
      "slug": "02-chapter-iii",
      "title": "Chapter III — The Three Mothers",
      "words": 382,
      "url": "/sources/sefer-yetzirah/02-chapter-iii/",
      "api": "/api/sources/sefer-yetzirah/02-chapter-iii.json",
      "project_translation": false,
      "subtitle": "Aleph, Mem, Shin — fire, water, air",
      "blurb": "The three mother-letters as the three primal elements: Aleph (air, balance), Mem (water, scale of acquittal), Shin (fire, scale of liability). Their cosmic, temporal, and bodily correspondences."
    },
    {
      "num": 4,
      "slug": "03-chapter-iv",
      "title": "Chapter IV — The Seven Doubles",
      "words": 250,
      "url": "/sources/sefer-yetzirah/03-chapter-iv/",
      "api": "/api/sources/sefer-yetzirah/03-chapter-iv.json",
      "project_translation": false,
      "subtitle": "Beth, Gimel, Daleth, Kaph, Peh, Resh, Tau",
      "blurb": "The seven double-letters as the seven planetary, weekly, and bodily principles. Each letter governs an opposed pair (life/death, peace/war, wisdom/folly, wealth/poverty, beauty/ugliness, fruitfulness/desolation, grace/abomination)."
    },
    {
      "num": 5,
      "slug": "04-supplement-to-chapter-iv",
      "title": "Supplement to Chapter IV",
      "words": 218,
      "url": "/sources/sefer-yetzirah/04-supplement-to-chapter-iv/",
      "api": "/api/sources/sefer-yetzirah/04-supplement-to-chapter-iv.json",
      "project_translation": false,
      "subtitle": "Further correspondences of the seven doubles",
      "blurb": "Extended treatment of the seven double-letters across the seven gates of the soul (eyes, ears, nostrils, mouth) and the seven heavens, planets, lands, weeks, and Sabbaths."
    },
    {
      "num": 6,
      "slug": "05-chapter-v",
      "title": "Chapter V — The Twelve Simples",
      "words": 221,
      "url": "/sources/sefer-yetzirah/05-chapter-v/",
      "api": "/api/sources/sefer-yetzirah/05-chapter-v.json",
      "project_translation": false,
      "subtitle": "The single letters as the twelve months, signs, and faculties",
      "blurb": "The twelve simple letters as the twelve months of the year, the twelve zodiacal signs, the twelve human faculties (sight, hearing, smell, speech, taste, sexual love, work, motion, anger, laughter, thought, sleep)."
    },
    {
      "num": 7,
      "slug": "06-supplement-to-chapter-v",
      "title": "Supplement to Chapter V",
      "words": 304,
      "url": "/sources/sefer-yetzirah/06-supplement-to-chapter-v/",
      "api": "/api/sources/sefer-yetzirah/06-supplement-to-chapter-v.json",
      "project_translation": false,
      "subtitle": "The twelve simples in body and cosmos",
      "blurb": "Extended treatment of the twelve simple letters across the twelve organs of the body, the twelve tribes, and the twelve borders/diagonals of the cube of space."
    },
    {
      "num": 8,
      "slug": "07-chapter-vi",
      "title": "Chapter VI — The Threefold Witness",
      "words": 400,
      "url": "/sources/sefer-yetzirah/07-chapter-vi/",
      "api": "/api/sources/sefer-yetzirah/07-chapter-vi.json",
      "project_translation": false,
      "subtitle": "Closing on Abraham and the covenant",
      "blurb": "Closes the treatise: the three mothers, seven doubles, and twelve simples are the threefold witness (world, year, soul). Abraham contemplated, traced, hewed, and combined these — and the Holy One revealed himself to him."
    },
    {
      "num": 9,
      "slug": "08-the-thirty-two-paths-of-wisdom",
      "title": "Appendix — The Thirty-Two Paths of Wisdom",
      "words": 1198,
      "url": "/sources/sefer-yetzirah/08-the-thirty-two-paths-of-wisdom/",
      "api": "/api/sources/sefer-yetzirah/08-the-thirty-two-paths-of-wisdom.json",
      "project_translation": false,
      "subtitle": "Each Sefirah-path named and characterized",
      "blurb": "A later appendix listing each of the thirty-two paths (10 Sefirot + 22 letters) with its name and a brief characterization. A standard medieval expansion of the Sefer Yetzirah corpus."
    }
  ]
}