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Joseph Derenbourg

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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JOSEPH DERENBOURG (1811-1895), Franco-German orientalist. He was a considerable force in the educational revival of Jewish education in France. He made great contributions to the knowledge of Saadia, and planned a complete edition of Saadia's works in Arabic and French. A large part of this work appeared during his lifetime. He also wrote an Essai sur l'histoire et la geographie de la Palestine (Paris, 1867). This was an original contribution to the history of the Jews and Judaism in the time of Christ, and has been much used by later writers on the subject (e.g. by Schiirer). He also published in collaboration with his son Hartwig, Opuscules et traites d'Abou- ` l-Walid (with translation,1880); Deux Versions hebraiques du livre de .Kalildh et Dimnah (1881), and a Latin translation of the same story under the title Joannis de Capua directorium vitae humanae (1889); Commentaire de Maimonide sur la Mischnah Seder Tohorot (Berlin,1886-1891); and a second edition of S. de Sacy's Seances de Marini. He died on the 29th of July 1895, at Ems.

His SOn, Hartwig Derenbourg (1844-1908), was born in Paris on the 17th of June 1844. He was educated at Gottingen and Leipzig. Subsequently he studied Arabic at the Ecoie des Langues Orientales. In 1879 he was appointed professor of Arabic, and in 1886 professor of Mahommedan Religion, at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes in Paris. He collaborated with his father in the great edition of Saadia and the edition of Abu-1Walid, and also produced a number of important editions of other Arabic writers. Among these are Le Diwdn de Ndbiqa Dhobyani; Le Livre de Sibawaihi (2 vols., Paris, 1881-1889); Chrestomathie elementaire de l'arabe litteral (in collaboration with Spiro, 1885; 2nd ed., 1892); Ousdma ibn Mounkidh, un emir syrien (1889); Ousdma ibn Mounkidh, preface du livre du bdton (with trans., 1887); Al-Fdkhri (1895); Oumdra du Gemen (1897), a catalogue of Arabic MSS. in the Escorial (vol. i., 1884).