SZCZEPAŃSKI, LADISLAO. - Orientalist and exegete, b. at Biała Małopolska (Poland) on 21 May 1877, d. at Innsbruck on 30 May 1927.
In 1891 he entered the Society of Jesus; he specialized in Semitic languages and archaeology at Beirut, in Palestine, and in Egypt, and in biblical studies at Innsbruck. In 1909 he was appointed professor at the then newly founded Pontifical Biblical Institute, where he taught biblical archaeology and the geography of ancient Palestine. In 1915, compelled by the war, he returned to Poland. Appointed professor at the University of Warsaw in 1918, he initiated and organized its theological faculty. During the years 1921-25 he was again in Palestine and for one semester taught at the Biblical Institute in Rome. In 1927, while travelling from Poland to Rome to resume his chair at the Biblical Institute, he fell ill and unexpectedly died at the age of 50.
In scholarly circles he was widely known as a learned specialist. He left many books and pamphlets: in German (Nach Petra und Sinai, 1908), in Latin (Geographia Palaestinae antiquae, 2ª ed. postuma, Roma 1928), and in Polish, works of biblical culture and archaeology concerning Palestine and the ancient East, including a new Polish version of the New Testament from the Greek original. In scholarly circles he was widely known as a learned specialist.
Bronislao Zieliński