the Tuesday after Christmas
free while helping to build churches and support pastors in Uganda.
Click here to learn more!
Bible Encyclopedias
Baptista, Giovanni Giona Galileo
The 1901 Jewish Encyclopedia
or Baptized Jew, professor of Hebrew, and librarian of the Vatican; born in Safed Oct. 28, 1588; died May 26, 1668. His Jewish name was Judah Jonah ben Isaac. He studied the Talmud and traveled as a rabbi through Italy and Poland; visited Amsterdam; and was finally elected dayyan in Hamburg. In 1625 he returned to Poland, and was converted to Christianity in Warsaw. Expelled from Poland, he came to Italy; was appointed professor of Hebrew, first in the University of Pisa, then in the Neophyte College of Rome; and later was one of the librarians of the Vatican.
The most important of his numerous works are: (1) a sermon in Hebrew and Latin on the Messiah and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles, Rome, 1653; (2) "Limmud ha-Meshiḥim" (Doctrines of Christianity), a Hebrew translation of the Italian catechism of Robert Bellarmin, 1658; (3) "Berit Ḥadashah," a Hebrew translation of the New Testament with a preface by Clement IX., to whom the translation was dedicated; (4) "Hebrew-Chaldaic Lexicon"; (5) a "Treatise on the Name of Jesus" (in manuscript); (6) "Ḥillufin Sheben Sheloshah Targumim," a collection of the differences in the three Targumim. This work was left unfinished; the manuscript is preserved in the Vatican Library.
- Vogelstein and Rieger, Gesch. der Juden in 2:286 et seq.;
- Wolf, Bibl. Hebr. 1:720.
These files are public domain.
Singer, Isidore, Ph.D, Projector and Managing Editor. Entry for 'Baptista, Giovanni Giona Galileo'. 1901 The Jewish Encyclopedia. https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/tje/b/baptista-giovanni-giona-galileo.html. 1901.
