ZORELL, FRANZ. — Jesuit and biblical scholar, born at Ravensburg (Württemberg) on 29 September 1863, died at Rome on 14 December 1947.
Having completed his gymnasium and secondary-school studies at the Jesuit College in Feldkirch (Austria) and in his native city, and having studied Oriental languages for one year at the University of Tübingen, he entered the Society of Jesus in 1884. After studying philosophy and theology at Ditton Hall (England) and Valkenburg (Netherlands), in 1897–98 he devoted himself to the study of Greek at the University of Berlin in preparation for the Lexicon Graecum Novi Testamenti, whose publication had been entrusted to him by the direction of the Cursus Scripturae Sacrae. Having completed this work (1st ed. 1911, 2nd ed. 1930), he undertook the arduous task of the Lexicon Hebraicum et Aramaicum Veteris Testamenti. He saw the first six fascicles appear (1940 ff.), and at his death he left
mollusks, as the object of malacology, founded, however, especially on conchyliology, that is, on a single organ belonging to one part of the mollusks; but this organ, although it does not enable the zoologist by itself to deepen his knowledge of mollusks, nevertheless has fundamental importance in paleontology.
The complexity of z., general and particular, purely scientific and applied,
the manuscript of all the rest, which, carefully revised and brought up to date, is now in the course of publication. In 1928 he was called to the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome as professor of the Armenian and Georgian languages, which he taught until a few years before his death. His extensive knowledge of approximately twenty ancient and modern languages and the almost innate exactitude he possessed made Z. exceptionally well prepared for these two lexicographical works, unique in the Catholic field.