Christian Knorr von Rosenroth (July 15/16, 1636 – May 4, 1689) was a German Hebraist born at Alt-Raudten, today Stara Rudna in Silesia. After having completed his studies in the universities of Wittenberg and Leipzig, he traveled through Holland, France, and England.
On his return he settled at Sulzbach and devoted himself to the study of Oriental languages, especially Hebrew, the rudiments of which he had acquired while abroad. Later he became a diligent student of the Kabbalah, in which he believed to find proofs of the doctrines of Christianity. In his opinion the Adam Kadmon of the cabalists is Jesus, and the three highest sefirot represent the Trinity. Rosenroth intended to make a Latin translation of the Zohar and the Tiḳḳunim, and he published as preliminary studies the first two volumes of his Kabbala Denudata, sive Doctrina Hebræorum Transcendentalis et Metaphysica Atque Theologia (Sulzbach, 1677–78). They contain a cabalistic nomenclature, the Idra Rabbah and Idra Zuṭa and the Sifra di-Ẓeni'uta, cabalistic essays of Naphtali Herz and Jacob Elhanan, etc. Rosenroth published two other volumes under the title Kabbala Denudata (Frankfort-on-the-Main, 1684), containing the Sha'ar ha-Shamayim of Abraham Cohen de Herrera and several of the writings of Isaac Luria. He was created Baron von Rosenroth by the Emperor Leopold I.[1]
Rosenroth composed a number of hymns, including Jesus, Son of Righteousness and Dayspring of Eternity.[1]
A longer biography is available in Scholem (1974). An English translation of the Kabbala Denudata was made by S. L. MacGregor Mathers in 1887, and is still in print by several publishers under the title The Kabbalah Unveiled.