This page includes biographical information and my personal reflections on the “Great Council” of Semitic scholars who have not only shaped the field but also have had a particularly lasting impact on my own academic journey. The members of this “council” include a dozen intellectual giants of previous generations who together form the pillars of knowledge upon which rests the field of Semitic studies. The scholars selected for inclusion are representative of the study of one or more of any of the major Semitic languages (Akkadian, Aramaic, Hebrew, Arabic, and/or Ethiopic) with an emphasis on both the breadth and depth of scholarship, meaning not only their contribution to a particular subfield but also their work across multiple branches of the Semitic language family. An emphasis is also placed on their contribution to the philological or linguistic study of ancient Semitic texts rather than e.g. ancient history, epigraphy, or material culture. It’s generally true that essentially anything they have written is worth reading even today. Biographical sketches, bibliographies, etc., coming soon.
Hiob Ludolf (1624-1704): Ethiopica
Hiob Ludolf (b. 15 June 1624; d. 8 April 1704) was a German orientalist and was the most distinguished scholars of Ethiopic language and literature of his time. Born in Erfurt, Germany, he studied philology at Erfurt and Leiden as well as traveled widely in search of knowledge. He is said to have known some twenty-five languages, including especially Classical Ethiopic and Amharic; he mostly published in Latin. Edward Ullendorff called him “the most illustrious name in Ethiopic scholarship.” Ludolf died at Frankfurt and is the namesake of the Hiob Ludolf Centre for Ethiopian and Eritrean Studies (ELCEES) at Universität Hamburg in Germany.
Bibliography forthcoming.
Bibliography forthcoming.
C. F. August Dillmann (1823-1894): Ethiopica
Theodor Nöldeke (1836-1930): Arabica and Syriaca
Carl Brockelmann (1868-1956): Semitica
William Foxwell Albright (1891-1971): Northwest Semitics
Hans Jakob Polotsky (1905-1991): Ethiopica and Semitica
Wolf Leslau (1906-2006): Ethiopica and Semitica
Wolfram von Soden (1908-1996): Akkadica
Cyrus Herzl Gordon (1908-2001): Northwest Semitics
Joseph A. Fitzmyer (1920-2016): Northwest Semitics
Thomas Oden Lambdin (1927-2020): Semitica
John Huehnergard (1952-present): Semitica
Other Echoes of Genius
- H. F. Wilhelm Gesenius (1786-1842): Hebrew and Phoenician
- Jean-François Champollion (1790-1832): Egyptian and other ancient languages
- Edward Hincks (1792-1866): Assyriology
- Edward William Lane (1801-1876): Arabic
- Henry Creswicke Rawlinson (1810-1895): Assyriology
- William Wright (1830-1889): Arabic
- George Smith (1840-1876): Assyriology
- H. H. Paul Haupt (1858-1926): Assyriology and Semitics
- Paul Joüon (1871-1940): Hebrew
- Gotthelf Bergsträsser (1886-1933): Arabic and Semitics
- Godfrey Rolles Driver (1892-1975): Assyriology and Hebrew
- Harry Orlinsky (1908-1992): Hebrew
- Yehoshua (Joshua) Blau (1919-2020): Hebrew
- Edward Ullendorff (1920-2011): Ethiopic and Semitics
- Frank Moore Cross (1921-2012): Northwest Semitics
- Moshe Goshen-Gottstein (1925-1991): Hebrew
- More coming soon.
Description forthcoming.
Description forthcoming.
Margolis was a Lithuanian Jewish-American philologist who received is PhD at Columbia University in 1891. He taught at Columbia, Hebrew Union College, University of California, and ultimately Dropsie College until his death. He served as the editor-in-chief of the JPS translation as well as president of SBL and editors of JBL and JAOS. Cyrus Gordon says that Margolis was the best teacher of Semitics he ever had and recounts the story that Margolis could tell identify any biblical verse solely on the basis of the Masoretic vocalization.
Bibliography for Comparative Semitics
Bibliography forthcoming.
Bibliography for Its History of Scholarship
- Goldenberg, Gideon. “In memoriam Robert Hetzron (1938-1997),” Aethiopica 2 (1999): 198-200.
- Gzella, Holgar. “Hans Bauer und die historisch-vergleichende Semitistik,” in Studien zur Semitistik und Arabistik: Festschrift für Hartmut Bobzin zum 60. Geburtstag (2008): 141-182.
- Hopkins, Simon. “H. J. Polotsky (1905-1991),” Rassegna di Studi Etiopici 34 (1990): 115-125.
- Huehnergard, John. “The Contributions of Frank Moore Cross to Semitic and Hebrew Philology,” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 372 (2014): 167-170.
- Lehmann, Reinhard G. “Wilhelm Gesenius and the Rise of Phoenician Philology,” Biblische Exegese und hebräische Lexicographie (2013): 209-266.
- Rubin, Aaron D. “The Paradigm Root in Hebrew,” Journal of Semitic Studies 52 (2008): 29-41.
- More coming soon.