Szczepański, Ladislao

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 and there taught biblical archaeology and the geography of ancient Palestine. In 1915, forced by the war, he returned to Poland. Appointed professor at the University of Warsaw in 1918, he initiated and organized the theological faculty there. In the years 1921-25 he was again in Palestine and for one semester taught at the Biblical Institute of Rome. In 1927, while traveling from Poland to Rome to take up his chair again 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, 2nd posthumous ed., Rome 1928) and in Polish works of biblical culture and archaeology on Palestine and the ancient East, among them a new Polish version of the New Testament from the original Greek. In scholarly circles he was widely known as a learned specialist.

Bronislao Zieliński