RELAND, ADRIAN:

By: Crawford Howell Toy, Joseph Jacobs

Dutch Christian Hebraist and Orientalist; born at Ryp, near Alkmaar, Holland, July 17, 1676; died at Utrecht Feb. 5, 1718. He became professor at Harderwyk in 1699, but resigned his appointment in the same year for the chair of Oriental languages at Utrecht. He studied Hebrew and rabbinics at Amsterdam.

Adrian Reland.

Reland's publications were: "Analecta Rabbinica" (Utrecht, 1702); "Disserlationes Quinque de Nummis Veterum Hebræorum" (ib. 1709); and an introduction to Alting's Hebrew grammar, together with an edition of the Book of Ruth with a rabbinical commentary (ib. 1710). In his miscellaneous collection of dissertations he dealt with many topics of interest, as the Samaritans, Persian words in the Talmud, etc. His chief works of Jewish interest, however, were his "Antiquitates Sacræ Veterum Hebræorum" (ib. 1708), which went through no less than five editions, and his "Palæstina ex Monumentis Veteribus Illustrata," which was published in 1714 at Utrecht,with eleven maps, and at Nuremberg in 1716. Both these works were for a long time the standard authorities on their respective subjects.

T. J.