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BUXTORF, or BUXTORIT, JOHANNES (1599-...

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Originally appearing in Volume V04, Page 894 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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BUXTORF, or BUXTORIT, JOHANNES (1599-1664)  , son of the preceding, was See also:born at See also:Basel on the 13th of See also:August 1599, and when still a boy attained considerable proficiency in the classical See also:languages . Entering the university at the See also:age of twelve, he was only sixteen when he obtained his See also:master's degree . He now gave himself up to theological and especially to semitic studies, concentrating later on rabbinical See also:Hebrew, and See also:reading while yet a See also:young See also:man both the Mishna and the See also:Jerusalem and Babylonian Gemaras . These studies he further See also:developed by visits to See also:Heidelberg, See also:Dort (where he made the acquaintance of many of the delegates to the See also:synod of 1619) and See also:Geneva, and in all these places acquired a See also:great reputation . In 1622 he published at Basel a See also:Lexicon Chaldaicum et Syriacum, as a See also:companion See also:work to his See also:father's great Rabbinical See also:Bible . He declined the See also:chair of See also:logic at See also:Lausanne, and in 1624 was appointed See also:general See also:deacon of the See also:church at Basel . On the See also:death of his father in 1629, he was unanimously designated his successor in the Hebrew See also:professor-See also:ship . From this date until his death in 1664 he remained at Basel, declining two offers which were made to him from See also:Groningen and See also:Leiden, to accept the Hebrew chair in these two celebrated See also:schools . In 1647 the governing See also:body of the university founded, specially for him, a third theological professorship, that of " Commonplaces and Controversies," which See also:Buxtorf held for seven years along with the Hebrew chair . When, however, the professorship of the Old Testament became vacant in 1654 by the death of Theodor Zwinger, Buxtorf resigned the chair of See also:theology and accepted that of the Old Testament instead . He was four times married, his three first wives dying shortly after See also:marriage and the See also:fourth predeceasing her See also:husband by seven years . His See also:children died young, with the exception of two boys, the younger of whom, See also:Jakob (1645-1704), became his father's colleague, and then his successor, in the chair of Hebrew .

The same distinction See also:

fell to the See also:lot of his See also:nephew Johann (1663-1732) . A considerable portion of Buxtorf's public See also:life was spent in controversy regarding disputed points in biblical See also:criticism, in reference to which he had to defend his father's views . The attitude of the Reformed churches at that See also:time, as opposed to the Church of See also:Rome, led them to maintain many opinions in regard to biblical questions which were not only erroneous, but altogether unnecessary for the stability of their position . Having renounced the See also:dogma of an infallible church, it was deemed necessary to maintain as a counterpoise, not only that of an infallible Bible, but, as the necessary See also:foundation of this, of a Bible which had been handed down from the earliest ages without the slightest textual alteration . Even the vowel points and accents were held to have been given by divine See also:inspiration . The Massoretic See also:text of the Old Testament, therefore, as compared either with that of the recently discovered Samaritan See also:Pentateuch, or the See also:Septuagint or of the See also:Vulgate, alone contained the true words of the sacred writers . Although many of the Reformers, as well as learned See also:Jews, had See also:long seen that theseassertions could not be made See also:good, there had been as yet no formal controversy upon the subject . See also:Louis See also:Cappel (q.v.) was the first effectually to dispel the illusions which had long prevailed by a work on the See also:modern origin of the vowel points and accents . The See also:elder Buxtorf had counselled him not to publish his work, pointing out the injury which it would do the See also:Protestant cause, but Cappel sent his MS. to See also:Thomas See also:Erpenius of Leiden, the most learned orientalist of his See also:day, by whom it was published in 1624, under the See also:title Arcanum Punctationis revelatum, but without the author's name . The elder Buxtorf, though he lived five years after the publication of the work, made no public reply to it, and it was not until 1648 that Buxtorf junior published his Tractatus de punctorum origine, antiquitate, et authoritate, oppositus Arcano punctationis revelato Ludovici Cappelli . He tried to prove by copious citations from the rabbinical writers, and by arguments of various kinds, that the points, if not so See also:ancient as the time of See also:Moses, were at least as old as that of See also:Ezra, and thus possessed the authority of divine inspiration . Unfortunately he allowed himself to employ contemptuous epithets towards Cappel; such as " innovator " and " visionary." Cappel speedily prepared a second edition of his work, in which, besides replying to the arguments of his opponent, and fortifying his position with new ones, he retorted his contumelious epithets with See also:interest .

Owing to various causes, however, this second edition did not see the See also:

light until 1685, when it was published at See also:Amsterdam in the edition of his collected See also:works . Besides this controversy, Buxtorf engaged in three others with the same antagonist, on the subject of the integrity of the Massoretic text of the Old Testament, on the antiquity of the See also:present Hebrew characters, and on the See also:Lord's Supper . In the two former Buxtorf supported the untenable position that the text of the Old Testament had been transmitted to us without any errors or alteration, and that the present square or so-called See also:Chaldee characters were coeval with the See also:original See also:composition of the various books . These views were triumphantly refuted by his great opponent in his Critica Sacra, and in his Diatriba veris et antiquis Ebraicorum literis . Besides the works already mentioned in the course of this See also:article, Buxtorf edited the great Lexicon Chaldaicum, Talmudicum, et Rabbinicum, on which his father had spent the labour of twenty years, and to the completion of which he himself gave ten years of additional study; and the great Hebrew See also:Concordance, which his father had little more than begun . In addition to these, he published new See also:editions of many of his father's works, as well as others of his own, See also:complete lists of which may he seen in the AthenaeRauricae and other works enumerated at the See also:close of the preceding article .

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