Joseph Mélèze-Modrzejewski (Józef Edmund Mélèze-Modrzejewski, 8 March 1930 in
Lublin – 29 January 2017) was a Polish-French historian and professor of ancient history at the
Pantheon-Sorbonne University.
Career
Joseph Mélèze-Modrzejewski began his scientific career in
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...
as a student of
Rafał Taubenschlag. After his arrival in
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...
in 1958,he taught for thirty years the legal and social history of the
Hellenistic world
In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in 3 ...
at the Faculty of Law of Paris and at the
Sorbonne
Sorbonne may refer to:
* Sorbonne (building), historic building in Paris, which housed the University of Paris and is now shared among multiple universities.
*the University of Paris (c. 1150 – 1970)
*one of its components or linked institution, ...
. Then following his retirement from the University in 1999, Mélèze-Modrzejewski continued for 5 years to lead a seminar on
papyrology
Papyrology is the study of manuscripts of ancient literature, correspondence, legal archives, etc., preserved on portable media from antiquity, the most common form of which is papyrus, the principal writing material in the ancient civilizations ...
and history of rights from ancient times at the
École pratique des hautes études
The École pratique des hautes études (), abbreviated EPHE, is a Grand Établissement in Paris, France. It is highly selective, and counted among France's most prestigious research and higher education institutions. It is a constituent college o ...
(IV
e Section, historical and philological sciences) established in 1972.
From 1979 to 2010, Mélèze-Modrzejewski taught the history of post-
Exilic Judaism
Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in t ...
at the
Université libre de Bruxelles (Institute of Jewish Studies
Martin Buber
Martin Buber ( he, מרטין בובר; german: Martin Buber; yi, מארטין בובער; February 8, 1878 –
June 13, 1965) was an Austrian Jewish and Israeli philosopher best known for his philosophy of dialogue, a form of existentialism ...
). His works - some 400 books, articles, minutes and chronicles since 1951 - focus on various aspects of the history of law and institutions of antiquity, especially the legal and social history of
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
and
Roman Egypt in light of papyrological sources, as well as the history of Judaism at the time of
the Second Temple. As the director of the ''Revue historique de droit français et étranger'', he participated in the management of several international journals in the field of the history of law and institutions.
Main publications
* ''Alexandre le Grand'', Varsovie : Éditions Ksiazka i Wiedza, 1958 ; 2
e ed. 1961
n Polish and Tel Aviv, Éditions Heder, 1961
n Hebrew
* ''Droit impérial et traditions locales dans l’Égypte romaine'', Aldershot : Éditions Variorum, 1990.
* ''Statut personnel et liens de famille dans les droits de l’Antiquité'', Aldershot Éditions Variorum, 1993.
* ''Les Juifs d’Égypte, de Ramsès II à Hadrien'', Paris : Éditions Errance, 1991, et Armand Colin, 1992 ; 2
e ed., revue et complétée, Paris : PUF, 1997 (Quadrige 247) ; ''The Jews of Egypt from Rameses II to Emperor Hadrian'', Philadelphie et Jérusalem, The Jewish Publication Society, et Edimbourg, T&T Clark, 1995 ; 2
e ed., revue, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1997.
* ''Troisième Livre des Maccabées'', Translation of the Greek text of the
Septante. Introduction and notes by Joseph Mélèze-Modrzejewski. (La Bible d’Alexandrie 15.3), Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 2008.
See also
*
History of the Jews in Egypt
Egyptian Jews constitute both one of the oldest and youngest Jewish communities in the world. The historic core of the Jewish community in Egypt consisted mainly of Egyptian Arabic speaking Rabbanites and Karaites. Though Egypt had its own co ...
*
Marguerite Harl
External links
Joseph Mélèze-Modrzejewskion
data.bnf.fr
{{DEFAULTSORT:Meleze-Modrzejewski, Joseph
1930 births
2017 deaths
Writers from Lublin
Polish emigrants to France
20th-century French historians
French papyrologists
Legal historians
Academic staff of the École pratique des hautes études
Academic staff of Pantheon-Sorbonne University
Academic staff of the Université libre de Bruxelles
University of Warsaw alumni
Corresponding Members of the Academy of Athens (modern)
Knights of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland
Members of the Polish Academy of Sciences