Samuel Bochart

Samuel Bochart (30 May 1599 - 16 May 1667) was a French scholar born in Rouen.

He was for many years a pastor of a Protestant church at Caen, and also studied in Oxford, becoming tutor to Wentworth Dillon, Earl of Roscommon. In 1646 he published his Phaleg and Chanaan (Caen, 1646 and 1651), the two parts of his Geographia Sacra. His Hierozoicon, a zoological treatise on the animals of the Bible, was printed in London (2 vols., 1663). In 1652 Christina of Sweden invited him to Stockholm, where he studied the Arabic manuscripts in the queen's possession. He was accompanied by Pierre Daniel Huet, afterwards Bishop of Avranches. On his return to Caen he was received into the academy of that city.

Bochart was a man of profound erudition; he possessed a thorough knowledge of the principal Oriental languages, including Hebrew, Syriac, Chaldean and Arabic; and at an advanced age he wished to learn Ethiopic. He was so absorbed in his favorite study, that he saw Phoenician and nothing but Phoenician in everything, even in Celtic words, and hence the number of chimerical etymologies which swarm in his works. He died of apoplexy in the academy of Caen during an impassioned debate with Pierre Daniel Huet on the translation of a passage of Origen related to transubstantiation.

Works include:

• a dictionary of Arabic
• Geographia Sacra, sur les premiers âges du monde, 1652
• De consiliandis in religionis negotio protestantibus, 1662
• Hierozoïcon, 1663

This article incorporates text from the public domain 1907 edition of The Nuttall Encyclopaedia.

fr:Samuel Bochart