Product Code Database
Johannes Buxtorfalso spelled as Buxtorff in the Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly Statement for 1894 () (December 25, 1564September 13, 1629) was a celebrated Hebraist, member of a family of oriental studies; professor of Hebrew language for thirty-nine years at Basel and was sometimes informally styled magister rabbinorum, or "Master of the ", by early modern European authors such as Edward Pococke and Johann Christoph Wolf. His massive tome, De Synagoga Judaica (1st. ed. 1603), scrupulously documents the customs and society of German Jewry in the early modern period.
Buxtorf was the father of Johannes Buxtorf the Younger.
After a short residence at Basel, he studied successively under Heinrich Bullinger (1504–1575) at Zürich and Theodore Beza at Geneva. On his return to Basel, Grynaeus, desirous that the services of so promising a scholar should be secured to the university, procured him a situation as tutor in the family of Leo Curio, son of Celio Secondo Curione, well known for his sufferings on account of the Reformed faith. At the insistence of Grynaeus, Buxtorf undertook the duties of the Hebrew chair in the university, and discharged them for two years with such ability that at the end of that time he was unanimously appointed to the vacant office. From this date (1591) to his death in 1629 he remained in Basel, and devoted himself with remarkable zeal to the study of Hebrew and rabbinic literature. He received into his house many learned Jews, that he might discuss his difficulties with them, and he was frequently consulted by Jews themselves on matters relating to their ceremonial law. His partiality for Jewish society brought him, indeed, on one occasion into trouble with the authorities of the city, the laws against the Jews being very strict. Nevertheless, on the whole, his relations with the city of Basel were friendly. He remained firmly attached to the university which first recognized his merits, and declined two invitations from the University of Leiden and Academy of Saumur successively. His correspondence with the most distinguished scholars of the day was very extensive; the library of the university of Basel contains a rich collection of letters, which are valuable for a literary history of the time.
Buxtorf did not live to complete the two works on which his reputation chiefly rests, his Lexicon Chaldaicum, Talmudicum, et Rabbinicum, and the Concordantiae Bibliorum Hebraicorum, both of which were edited by his son. The lexicon was republished at Leipzig in 1869 with some additions by Bernard Fischer, and the concordance was assumed by Julius Fürst as the basis of his own Hebrew concordance, which appeared in 1840.
Wilhelm Gesenius wrote in 1815 that he considered Buxtorf's Hebrew grammar the best yet written.Steven W. Holloway, ed., Orientalism, Assyriology and the Bible, Hebrew Bible Monographs, 10; Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2006; ; p. 5.
|
|
