Joel Löwe (; 1760 – February 11, 1802, Breslau), best known by the

pen name A pen name or nom-de-plume is a pseudonym (or, in some cases, a variant form of a real name) adopted by an author and printed on the title page or by-line of their works in place of their real name. A pen name may be used to make the author's na ...

Joel Bril (; Bril being an

acronym An acronym is a type of abbreviation consisting of a phrase whose only pronounced elements are the initial letters or initial sounds of words inside that phrase. Acronyms are often spelled with the initial Letter (alphabet), letter of each wor ...

for "son of R. Judah Löb"), was a German Biblical commentator.

Biography

At the age of twenty he went to Berlin, where he received instruction from Isaac Satanow, who was a follower of

Moses Mendelssohn Moses Mendelssohn (6 September 1729 – 4 January 1786) was a German-Jewish philosopher and theologian. His writings and ideas on Jews and the Jewish religion and identity were a central element in the development of the ''Haskalah'', or 'J ...

. In Berlin Löwe met Mendelssohn, his acquaintance with whom soon ripened into friendship. Mendelssohn's influence was doubtless instrumental in securing for Löwe the position of tutor in the house of the influential David Friedländer. Löwe became a most intimate friend of another prominent Mendelssohnian, Isaac Abraham Euchel, whose first work, a Hebrew biography of Mendelssohn, contains a dedicatory letter addressed to Löwe. At the close of his life Löwe was principal of the Wilhelms-Schule in Breslau. Löwe was an excellent Hebraist, grammarian, and exegete, and, like most Mendelssohnians, was also a "Schöngeist" (''bel esprit''). Jointly with Aaron Wolfsohn he edited ''Ha-Meassef'', in which periodical he published a large number of poems and essays.

Work

Löwe belonged to the '' bi'urists'' who assisted Mendelssohn in his commentaries on the Bible. His own main work was a critical Hebrew commentary and an excellent introduction to the

Psalms The Book of Psalms ( , ; ; ; ; , in Islam also called Zabur, ), also known as the Psalter, is the first book of the third section of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) called ('Writings'), and a book of the Old Testament. The book is an anthology of B ...

(1788), which latter forms a history of Biblical poetry; and he published, also, Mendelssohn's German translation of the Psalms in Hebrew letters. In company with Aaron Wolfsohn, Löwe published Mendelssohn's German translation of the ''

Song of Solomon The Song of Songs (), also called the Canticle of Canticles or the Song of Solomon, is a biblical poem, one of the five ("scrolls") in the ('writings'), the last section of the Tanakh. Unlike other books in the Hebrew Bible, it is erotic poe ...

'' with a Hebrew commentary. He was the first to translate the ''Haggadah shel Pesaḥ'' into German (1785). Of his '''Ammude ha-Lashon'', on the elements of the Hebrew language, only the first part was published (1794). He wrote also on

chronology Chronology (from Latin , from Ancient Greek , , ; and , ''wikt:-logia, -logia'') is the science of arranging events in their order of occurrence in time. Consider, for example, the use of a timeline or sequence of events. It is also "the deter ...

, and was a contributor to

Johann Gottfried Eichhorn Johann Gottfried Eichhorn (16 October 1752, in Dörrenzimmern – 27 June 1827, in Göttingen) was a German Protestant theologian of the Enlightenment and an early orientalist. He was a member of the Göttingen school of history. Education and ...

's ''Allgemeine Bibliothek der Biblischen Literatur''. His plan to publish a Hebrew grammar on a large scale did not materialize.

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Loewe, Joel 1760 births 1802 deaths Jewish biblical scholars German biblical scholars 18th-century German Jews Silesian Jews 18th-century Jewish biblical scholars People of the Haskalah