Jean Astruc
Jean Astruc (19 March 1684, in
Life and career
The son of a
The safeguard was required since Astruc's Languedoc homeland was in the frame of the Counter-Reformation, and the Protestant "Camisards" being deported or sent to the galleys was still a very recent memory. In Astruc's own times the writers of the Encyclopédie were working under great pressure and in secret, the Catholic Church not offering a tolerant atmosphere for biblical criticism.
That was somewhat ironic, for Astruc saw himself as fundamentally a supporter of orthodoxy; his unorthodoxy lay not in denying Mosaic authorship of Genesis but in his defence of it. In the previous century scholars such as Thomas Hobbes,[2] Isaac La Peyrère,[3] and Baruch Spinoza[4] had drawn up long lists of inconsistencies and contradictions and anachronisms in the Torah and used them to argue that Moses could not have been the author of the entire five books. Astruc was outraged by this "sickness of the last century" and was determined to use modern 18th century scholarship to refute that of the 17th century.[5]
Using methods already well established in the study of the Classics for sifting and assessing differing manuscripts,
Astruc's work was taken up by a succession of German scholars, the intellectual climate in Germany then being more conducive to scholarly freedom. Those hands formed the foundation of modern critical exegesis of the Old and New Testaments.
Astruc was also the author of Elements of Midwifery ... With ... an answer to a casuistical letter, on the conduct of Adam and Eve, at the birth of their first child ... (1766).[8][9]
See also
References
Notes
- ISBN 978-0-8308-2927-9.
- ^ Astruc, Conjectures sur les memoires originaux dont il paroit que Moyse s'est servi pour composer le livre de la Genese, p. 454, and the "Table des Matieres" (Table of Matters), p. 509.
- ^ Astruc, Conjectures sur les memoires..., Isaac (de) la Peyrère, p. 454, and "Table des Matieres" (Table of Matters) p. 520.
- ^ Astruc, Conjectures sur les memoires..., p. 439, pp. 452–454, and "Table des Matieres" (Table of Matters), p. 524.
- ^ Astruc, Conjectures sur les memoires..., p. 454 refers to "...la maladie du dernier siecle".
- ^ One of the textual studies he mentions as a basis of his own method is that of Richard Simon; cf. Astruc, Conjectures sur les mémoires..., p. 7, pp. 476–477, and "Table of Matters". p. 524; see also Richard H. Popkin, Isaac de la Peyrère (1596–1676): His Life, Work, and Influence, Leiden, E. J. Brill, 1987, p. 74.
- ^ Gordon Wenham, "Exploring the Old Testament: Volume 1: The Pentateuch" (2003), p. 162-63
- ^ "Explore the British Library Search - jean astruc l'art d'accoucher". explore.bl.uk. Retrieved 2020-12-11.
- ^ L'Art d'Accoucher réduit a ses principes....Jarndyce Antiquarian Booksellers, London. Retrieved 1 June 2019. Archived 1 June 2019 at the Wayback Machine
This article needs additional citations for verification. (January 2010) |
Sources
- Jean Astruc, Conjectures sur la Genèse, 2003. critical edition with introduction and notes by Pierre Gibert.
- Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 2 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 819–820.
- Janet Doe, "Jean Astruc (1694–1766): a biography and bibliography," Journal of the History of Medicine vol. 15, (1960) pp. 184–97
- Conjectures sur les mémoires originaux dont il paroit que Moyse s'est servi pour composer le livre de la Genèse, Bruxelles (1753)
Further reading
- Huard, Pierre (1970). "Astruc, Jean.". ISBN 0-684-10114-9.