CASPARI, CHARLES PAUL:

By: Crawford Howell Toy

German Semite and Biblical scholar; born at Dessau 1814; died 1892. His parents were Jews, and he was reared in the Jewish faith, but in 1838 became a Christian. In 1847 he was called to the University of Christiania, where he remained until his death. The most enduring work of Caspari is his Arabic grammar, "Grammatica Arabica" (1844-48), very soon translated into German, since revised and enlarged by Wright in England (English translation, 3d ed., 1896) and A. Müller in Germany (1887), and now the standard Arabic grammar. Of his numerous exegetical works the following may be mentioned: commentary on Obadiah (1842); "Beiträge zur Einleitung in das Buch Jesaia und zur Gesch. der Jesaianischen Zeit" (1848); "Ueber den Syrisch-Ephraimitischen Krieg unter Jotham und Ahas" (1849); commentary on Micah (1851-52); and commentary on Isaiah (1867). He also translated the Psalter into Norwegian (1851), and had charge of the new Norwegian translation of the Bible (1891).

T.