LEUSDEN JOHANN 1688 Sefer Tehilim Liber Psalmorum p5 A2 JEHOVA

Johannes Leusden (also called Jan (informal), John (English), or Johann (German)) (26 April 1624 – 30 September 1699) was a Dutch

Calvinist Reformed Christianity, also called Calvinism, is a major branch of Protestantism that began during the 16th-century Protestant Reformation. In the modern day, it is largely represented by the Continental Reformed Protestantism, Continenta ...

theologian Theology is the study of religious belief from a religious perspective, with a focus on the nature of divinity. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of ...

and orientalist. Leusden was born in

Utrecht Utrecht ( ; ; ) is the List of cities in the Netherlands by province, fourth-largest city of the Netherlands, as well as the capital and the most populous city of the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of Utrecht (province), Utrecht. The ...

. He studied in Utrecht and

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...

and became a Professor of

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

in Utrecht, where he died, aged 75. Leusden was one of the most prominent

Bible The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) originally writt ...

experts of his time, and wrote several works about the Bible and about Hebrew

philology Philology () is the study of language in Oral tradition, oral and writing, written historical sources. It is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics with strong ties to etymology. Philology is also de ...

(''Philologus Hebraeus'', 1656; ''Philologus Hebraeo-Mixtus'', 1663; ''Philologus Hebraeo-Latino-Belgicum'', 1668; ''Philologus Hebraeo-Graecus'', 1670; ''Korte Hebreusche en Chaldeusche taalkonst'', 1686). In 1661, together with the Amsterdam book printer

Joseph Athias Joseph Athias (c. 1635 – 12 May 1700) was a merchant, bookprinter and the publisher of a famous Hebrew Bible which was approved by States General of the Netherlands, States-General of the Dutch Republic and both Jewish and Christian theologian ...

, he published his ''Biblia Hebraica'', the first edition of the Hebrew Bible with numbered verses. The ''Catholic Encyclopedia'' of 1913 dismissed Leusden's copious notes to the text as being "of little value".A.J. Maas, 'Joseph Athias', in C. Herbermann (ed.), ''Catholic Encyclopedia'' (Robert Appleton Company, New York 1913), 2. The 1667 edition was strongly criticized in 1669 by the Protestant Samuel Desmarets, who died in 1673. Athias answered the charges in a short work whose title begins, ''Caecus de coloribus''. Athias’ pamphlet was a full-blown attack on a senior Christian theologian in the

United Provinces of the Netherlands The United Provinces of the Netherlands, commonly referred to in historiography as the Dutch Republic, was a confederation that existed from 1579 until the Batavian Revolution in 1795. It was a predecessor state of the present-day Netherla ...

. That the true author of the pamphlet was not Athias but Johannes Leusden, and that the Utrecht professor had published it in Athias’ name, is an assessment that scholars have followed ever since. His name and the "Philologus hebraeograecus" figure in a short story of

Jorge Luis Borges Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo ( ; ; 24 August 1899 – 14 June 1986) was an Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator regarded as a key figure in Spanish literature, Spanish-language and international literatur ...

, Argentinian writer (1899–1986) called "la muerte y la brújula" (The Death and the Compass).

References

1624 births 1699 deaths Dutch Calvinist and Reformed theologians Dutch biblical scholars Christian Hebraists Writers from Utrecht (city) 17th-century Calvinist and Reformed theologians {{Netherlands-academic-bio-stub