Stephen Sewall (March 24, 1734 – July 23, 1804) was an American professor of

Hebrew 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

Oriental The Orient is a term for the East in relation to Europe, traditionally comprising anything belonging to the Eastern world. It is the antonym of ''Occident'', the Western World. In English, it is largely a metonym for, and coterminous with, the ...

languages at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

. He was a charter member of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

(1780) and was considered one of the greatest scholars of his generation. He replaced

Judah Monis Judah Monis (February 4, 1683April 25, 1764) was North America's first college instructor of the Hebrew language, teaching at Harvard College from 1722 to 1760, and authored the first Hebrew textbook published in North America. Monis was also the f ...

as the lecturer in Hebrew at his alma mater shortly after he graduated in 1761.

References

Goldman, Yosef Yosef Goldman (1942 – August 4, 2015) was a scholar of American Jewish history and the co-author of the two-volume reference work, '' Hebrew Printing in America 1735-1926: A History and Annotated Bibliography'' (2006). This work is usually cited b ...

. ''

Hebrew Printing in America, 1735-1926, A History and Annotated Bibliography ''Hebrew Printing in America, 1735-1926, A History and Annotated Bibliography'' () is a history and bibliography of Hebrew books printed in America between 1735 and 1926 by Ari Kinsberg. It records 1208 items, annotated with bibliographical inform ...

'' (YGBooks 2006). .
Papers of Stephen Sewall, 1764-1797

Notes

1734 births 1804 deaths American lexicographers Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Harvard University alumni Harvard University faculty Neo-Latin poets 18th-century lexicographers Linguists from the United States {{US-linguist-stub