Benjamin Kedar-Kopfstein (1 August 1923 – 2013) was an Israeli

professor emeritus ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...

and Chairman of the Department of Bible Studies at the

University of Haifa The University of Haifa ( he, אוניברסיטת חיפה Arabic: جامعة حيفا) is a university located on Mount Carmel in Haifa, Israel. Founded in 1963, the University of Haifa received full academic accreditation in 1972, becoming ...

.City of

Braunschweig Braunschweig () or Brunswick ( , from Low German ''Brunswiek'' , Braunschweig dialect: ''Bronswiek'') is a city in Lower Saxony, Germany, north of the Harz Mountains at the farthest navigable point of the river Oker, which connects it to the ...

Memorial stone project draft for victims of National Socialism.
"Benjamin Kopfstein Born 08/01/1923" (translated from German) He was also a member of the academic staff of the

Hebrew University Bible Project The Hebrew University Bible Project (HUBP) is a project at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem to create the first edition of the Hebrew Bible that reproduces the text of the Aleppo Codex and includes a thorough critical apparatus. It was begun in ...

in charge of the Latin versions. Many of his articles on biblical philology have appeared in the ''

Jewish Quarterly Review ''The Jewish Quarterly Review'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering Jewish studies. It is published by the University of Pennsylvania Press on behalf of the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies (University of Pe ...

'', ''Textus'', ''Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Alten Testament'', '' Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft'' and in biblical encyclopedias.

Biography

Kedar-Kopfstein was the youngest son of Felix Kopfstein, a lawyer in

Seesen Seesen is a town and municipality in the district of Goslar, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated on the northwestern edge of the Harz mountain range, approx. west of Goslar. History The Saxon settlement of ''Sehusa'' was first mentioned i ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

who died while fleeing from Nazi persecution. In 1939 he escaped to Palestine with the

Youth Aliyah Youth Aliyah (Hebrew: עלית הנוער, ''Aliyat Hano'ar'', German: Jugend-Alijah, Youth Immigration) is a Jewish organization that rescued thousands of Jewish children from the Nazis during the Third Reich. Youth Aliyah arranged for their r ...

, and initially lived in the kibbutz. He later became a member of the Jewish Settlement Police, an elite force recruited by the Haganah.Felix Kopfstein
, Family tree online.

Education

Kedar-Kopfstein attended Jewish secondary school in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

. He received his PhD from Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1968 with his thesis ''The Vulgate as a translation: some semantic and syntactical aspects of Jerome's version of the Hebrew Bible''.

Academic work

He was director of the Old Testament Seminary of the University of Haifa and the Chairman of its Department of Bible Studies. He was also a Research Associate for the

in charge of Latin Versions. He is known for his contributions to the understanding of Old Testament language Semantics. His articles on biblical philology have appeared in biblical encyclopedias, ''

The Jewish Quarterly Review ''The Jewish Quarterly Review'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering Jewish studies. It is published by the University of Pennsylvania Press on behalf of the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies (University of Pe ...

'',

, '' Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft'' (Journal of Old Testament scholarship in German) and other Hebrew scholarship journals. In 1984, he was Acting Rector of the

Center for Jewish Studies Heidelberg The Center for Jewish Studies Heidelberg (German: Hochschule für Jüdische Studien Heidelberg, or HfJS) is an Accreditation, accredited institution of higher learning, supported by the Central Council of Jews in Germany and funded by the German f ...

.The Rectors of the HfJS
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Honors

Stolperstein Braunschweig Zeppelinstrasse 2 Benjamin Kopfstein

The City of

in Germany honored Doctor Kedar as part of its memorial stone project for victims of National Socialism.

Works

Thesis

Books

* 1978: ''Theological dictionary of the Old Testament'' (Contributor) pp. 234–249 * 1981: ''Biblical semantics: An introduction''. (''Biblische Semantik: Eine Einführung''), Kohlhammer, 214 pages. (in German) * 1994: ''The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context'' (Contributor) pp. 420–430

Selected articles

Hebrew University Bible Project

A Note on Isaiah xiv, 31
Textus 2 (1962): 143-145
Divergent Hebrew Readings in Jerome's Isaiah.
Textus 4 (1964): 176–210.
Textual Gleanings from the Vulgate to Jeremiah
Textus 7 (1969): 36–58.
The Interpretative Element in Transliteration
Textus 8 (1973): 55–77.
The Hebrew Text of Joel as Reflected in the Vulgate
Textus Textus 9 (1981): 16-35

Other

* Etimologias populares. ''Enciclopedia de la Biblia'' 3 (1963): 247–251. * The Vulgate as a Translation. Some Semantic and Syntactical Aspects of Jerome's Version of the Hebrew Bible, Phd. dissertation. Hebrew University of Jerusalem (1968). * Textual Gleanings from the Vulgate to Hosea. ''The Jewish Quarterly Review'' 65.2 (1974): 73–97.
Semantic Aspects of the pattern qôṭel
Haifa University (1977)
The rooting qôṭel as a translation problem
''Journal of Old Testament Scholarship'' (1981) ('' Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft'') (in German, English, and Biblical Hebrew). 93 (2): 254–279 * The Latin Translations. Mulder, MJ. ''Mikra: Text, Translation, Reading and Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity'' (1988): 299–338. * The Textual Criticism of the Bible: An Introduction. ''Hebrew Studies'' 33.1 (1992): 170–172. * The Interpretation of Rhetorical Questions. Fishbane, M & Tov, E with assistance of Fields, WW (eds) (1992). * Paronomasia in Biblical Texts: Logical and Psy-chological Aspects. M. Bar Asher & al.(Eds.), ''Iyune mikra ufarshanut''.(''Biblical Studies and Exegesis'') 3 (1993): 383–400. * Jewish Traditions in the Writings of Jerome, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament (1994) pp. 420–420 * On the Decoding of Polysemantic Lexemes in Biblical Hebrew, ''Zeitschrift für Althebräistik'' (1994) pp. 17–25 * ''Biblical Hebrew and Discourse Linguistics''. (1996): 136–138.

References

Sources

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kedar-Kopfstein, Benjamin 1923 births 2013 deaths Jewish biblical scholars Hebrew University of Jerusalem alumni Academic staff of the University of Haifa Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to Mandatory Palestine 20th-century Jewish biblical scholars