Buxtorf - Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. III, p. 173

Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.

BUXTORF. – Family of Protestant Hebraists from
Basel, who succeeded one another in the chair of
biblical languages in that city.

JOHANNES (I, senior [1564-1629]) was the most celebrated.
A most learned Hebraist, initiated into Hebrew and Talmudic literature by erudite Jews, he obtained the chair in 1590. He maintained, along with various other Protestants of his time, that the vowel points in the Hebrew text and the square script were primitive.

Works: Synagoga iudaica (Basel 1603 in German; Hanau 1604 in Latin), an exposition of the religion, customs, and ceremonies of the Jews; Praeceptiones grammaticae hebraicae (ibid. 1605), later becoming Epitome gramm. hebr., which went through 16 editions; Epitome radicum hebr. et chald. (ibid. 1607), later becoming the Lexikon hebraicum et chaldaicum; De abbreviaturis hebraicis (ibid. 1613); Biblia hebraica (ibid. 1618-1619); Tiberias, seu commentarius masorethicus (ibid. 1620); Lexicon chaldaicum talmudicum, edited by his son (ibid. 1639); Concordantiae Bibliorum hebraicae (ibid. 1632).

JOHANNES (II, iunior [1599-1664]), son of the preceding,

defended his father’s theses, polemicizing with the Protestant Louis (II) Cappel, who maintained, on the contrary, that the vowel points were later than the Talmud and that the square script had been preceded by the Samaritan, which was primitive.

Works: Lexicon chald. et syr. (Basel 1622); De litterarum hebr. genuina antiquitate (ibid. 1643); De linguae hebr. origine et antiquitate (ibid. 1644); various Dissertationes philol.-theol. (ibid. 1645 ff.); Tractatus de punctorum, vocalium et accentuum in libris V. T. hebr. origine (ibid. 1648); Anticritica, seu Vindiciae veritatis hebr. adv. Lud. Cappelli criticam (ibid. 1653). He translated from Hebrew into Latin Maimonides’ Mōreh Nēbhūkhīm (Doctor perplexorum, ibid. 1629) and Judah Halevi’s Kūzārī (Liber Cosri, ibid. 1660).

BIBL.: For Johannes I: J. Buxtorf, Synagoga iudaica, ed. L. Sieber, Basel 1896; H. H. Rowley, The Zadokite Fragments and the Dead Sea Scrolls, Manchester 1952, p. 10; V. also HEBRAISTS, PROTESTANT; for Johannes II: L. Cappellus, Arcanum punctationis revelatum, Leiden 1624; id., Critica sacra, Paris 1650; J. Buxtorf, Anticritica, Basel 1653; V. CAPPEL, LOUIS.

JOHANN JAKOB (1645-1704), son of the preceding, oversaw new editions of the two works by his grandfather Tiberias (Ba- silea 1665) and Synagoga Judaica (ibid. 1680). After his

death, the rich collection of Hebrew works from the Buxtorf
family passed to the library of the University of Basel.

JOHANN III (1661-1732), nephew of the
preceding, wrote: *Catalecta philologico-theologica cum mantissa
epistolarum virorum clarorum ad Johannem Buxtorfium patrem
et filium scriptarum (Basel 1707); Specimen phraseologiae
V. T. hebraicae* (Frankfurt am Main 1717).

BIBL.: M. Kayserling, s. V. in Jewish Enc., III, p. 446 ff.; I. Markon, s. V. in Enc. Judaica, IV, cols. 1232-34; E. and C. Berthesu, s. V. in Realencyklopädie für protestantische Theol. und Kirche,

III, pp. 612-17. Gaetano M. Perrella