Mitchell Dahood ( Anaconda, Montana, 1922-

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

8 March 1982) was an American Jesuit

Hebraist A Hebraist is a specialist in Jewish, Hebrew and Hebraic studies. Specifically, British and German scholars of the 18th and 19th centuries who were involved in the study of Hebrew language and literature were commonly known by this designation, a ...

and Bible scholar. Dahood grew up in Concord, New Hampshire, and studied at

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hemisphere. It consi ...

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

. He moved to Rome in 1957 where he became professor of the

Hebrew language Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

, and of the Ancient Near East languages

Ugaritic Ugaritic () is an extinct Northwest Semitic language, classified by some as a dialect of the Amorite language and so the only known Amorite dialect preserved in writing. It is known through the Ugaritic texts discovered by French archaeologist ...

and

Eblaite Eblaite (, also known as Eblan ISO 639-3), or Palaeo-Syrian, is an extinct East Semitic language used during the 3rd millennium BC by the populations of Northern Syria. It was named after the ancient city of Ebla, in modern western Syria. Varian ...

, at the

Pontifical Biblical Institute The Pontifical Biblical Institute (also known as Biblicum) is a research and postgraduate teaching institution specialised in biblical and ancient Near Eastern studies. It is an institution of the Holy See entrusted to the Society of Jesus. His ...

. Among his works was a three-volume translation of the

Psalms The Book of Psalms ( or ; he, תְּהִלִּים, , lit. "praises"), also known as the Psalms, or the Psalter, is the first book of the ("Writings"), the third section of the Tanakh, and a book of the Old Testament. The title is derived ...

with commentary, originally published by Doubleday, and then re-published by

Yale University Press Yale University Press is the university press of Yale University. It was founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day, and became an official department of Yale University in 1961, but it remains financially and operationally autonomous. , Yale Universi ...

in the

Anchor Yale Bible Series The Anchor Bible Series, which consists of a commentary series, a Bible dictionary, and a reference library, is a scholarly and commercial co-venture which was begun in 1956, with the publication of individual volumes in the commentary series. O ...

. Dahood was known within the field of biblical studies for using information from

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and the

Ugaritic language Ugaritic () is an extinct Northwest Semitic language, classified by some as a dialect of the Amorite language and so the only known Amorite dialect preserved in writing. It is known through the Ugaritic texts discovered by French archaeologist ...

(discovered first in 1929) as the basis for proposed new interpretations of passages in the Psalms, with sometimes controversial results.A Short Note on Mitchell Dahood's Exegetical Methodology
" ''Hebrew Studies'', vol. 22, 1981, pp. 35–38.

References

1922 births 1982 deaths People from Anaconda, Montana American Hebraists 20th-century American Jesuits Johns Hopkins University alumni Linguists from the United States American expatriates in Italy Catholics from Montana 20th-century linguists {{US-linguist-stub