According to Alfred Honig (writing in the late 19th century), the Ophite name for the demiurge, Jaldabaoth, comes from a Hebrew phrase meaning “child of chaos,” and the etymology goes back at least to the 1820s. Scholem argued, however, that the name was invented by a Jew and is a combination of “begetter” and “sabaoth.” Either etymology, however, suggestively indicates the Jewish roots of a key gnostic term.
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