The Book of Formation –
  a Bibliography

Preface

From Rabbi Doctor David Castile (Florence, Italy), publisher in the 1800s of Shabtai Donolo's manuscript, the first known commentary on the Book of Formation —

"The ideas in the Book of Formation are profound and inaccessible as if locked up, as all scholars are aware of.  All who want to understand the topics will unsuccessfully toil toward this end."

English

^  Sefer Yetzirah: The Book of Creation, by Aryeh Kaplan (York Beach, Maine: Samuel Weiser, Inc., 1990)
BM525.A4212K37 1990
296.1'6 -- dc20 89-24820
ISBN 0-87728-726-0 paperback

^  Sepher Yetzirah: The Book of Creation, Two Versions, Explaining Jewish Mystical Philosophy and the Cabala
Translated by Rev. Dr. Isidor Kalisch and Knut Stenring
(San Diego, California: The Book Tree, 2006)
Originally published 1877 by L. H. Frank & Co., New York
and 1923 by William Rider & Son, Limited, London
ISBN 978-1-58509-282-6

^  The Book of Formation, or Sepher Yetzirah: Attributed to Rabbi Akiba ben Joseph
Translated from the Hebrew, with annotations, by Knut Stenring
Foreword by R. A. Gilbert
Introduced and edited by Arthur Edward Waite
(Berwick, Maine: Nicolas-Hays, Inc., 2004)
ISBN 0-89254-094-X

Hebrew

^  Sefer Yetzirah: Nuscha Y'shana
Hebrew text, called the "Old Version" (Nuscha Y'shana)
According to the Mantova [Mantua, Italy] edition, printed 1552 (5322 a.m.).
The version of the text used by the first commentators:

• [ Shabtai Donolo (913-970) (4673-4730 a.m.) Sefer Chachmuni, ]
  
• Sa'adiah Ga'on (flourished 928),
• Ravad - Rabbi Avraham ben David of Posquieres, Provence (1120?-1198),
• Eliezer of Wörms (1160?-1237?),
• Nachmanides (1194?-1270),
• and others.

Five chapters, pp. 62-64,
Appended to Sefer Yetzirah
with a commentary by the Ga'on Rabbi Eliyahu of Vilna (HaG"RA)
Edited by Shmuel Luria of Mohiliv * (son of Eliezer Aharon)
* Mohyliv-Podilskyy, Ukraine, or Mahilyow, Belarus
(Warsaw: Yitzchok Goldman Press, 1884 [5644 a.m.])
Which, in turn, is appended to Sefer Yetzirah: m'yuchas l'Avraham Avinu, alav hashalom
Hebrew edition
with commentaries by Kabbalistic Sages
Edited by Menachem Mendel son of Baruch Bendet of Shklov
Horodna (Horodnya, Ukraine) c. 1806 (5566 a.m.).
Offset reprint by Yeshivat haChaim v'HaShalom, Jerusalem, 1990.