Félix-Marie Abel

Félix-Marie Abel

Félix-Marie Abel (December 29, 1878 – March 24, 1953)[1] was a French archaeologist, a geographer, and a professor at the École Biblique in Jerusalem. A Dominican priest, he was one of the most prominent bible scholars in the end of Ottoman era and British Mandate era.[2] His work "remains even today the authority on the Greek sources for Palestine", according to Benedict T. Viviano.[3]

Biography

Abel was born in Saint-Uze, in the Drôme department, on December 29, 1878. He was ordained on February 1, 1897 at Saint-Maximin.[1] In 1897 he arrived in Jerusalem to study in the École Biblique founded by Marie-Joseph Lagrange;[4] Lagrange had recruited him (and fr:Raphaël Savignac) to help him get "a clear grasp of physical environment and the cultural framework of the Bible". Abel graduated in 1900.[5] In 1905 he became a professor at the École Biblique and served there until his death in 1953.[6]

Work

He published a number of studies in various disciplines—linguistics, geography, and history. His Grammaire du Grec Biblique is a grammar of Biblical Greek (1927).[5] Preceded by a volume on Palestine in the Guide Bleu series of travel guides,[5][7] his Géographie de la Palestine (Paris, 1933–1938) treats the political, historical and physical geography from the most remote times until the Byzantine period.[6] The book has two volumes, the first a physical geography, and the second a historical geography.[7] The study supports, for instance, the theory of William F. Lynch that the Essenes lived in a set of small caves directly above Ein Gedi (which Lynch had visited in 1848[8]), a theory later discredited by scholarship.[9][10] The topographical quality of his work was quite influential: according to Jerome Murphy-O'Connor, "The ten maps he prepared have served as the prime, but often unacknowledged, source of much subsequent topographical identification".[11] In 1952 he published Histoire de la Palestine depuis la conquête d'Alexandre jusqu'à l'invasion arabe, a comprehensive history.[5] He also edited and translated the Book of Joshua for the École Biblique's edition of the bible,[7] translated the Books of the Maccabees and identified several battle sites of the Maccabean Revolt and other places that related to Hasmonean dynasty.[2]

With Louis-Hugues Vincent he published a number of works, the most famous of which are the three volumes of topographic-archaeological-historical studies on the city of Jerusalem. They worked together also at the excavations of Emmaus, on research on the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, and at the Church of the Nativity.[12] With Savignac he argued that archeological remains beneath the St. Stephen's Basilica, Jerusalem, which houses the École Biblique, were those of the basilica built by Empress Eudocia in the 5th century CE, but not that this was also the site of the stoning of Saint Stephen the Protomartyr.[13]

Bibliography

  • Abel, Félix-Marie. Grammaire du Grec biblique suivie d'un choix de Papyrus. Paris, 1927.
  • Abel, F. M. (1933). Geographie de la Palestine. 1 2 Geographie Politique. Librairie Lecoffre.
  • Abel, F. M. (1938). Geographie de la Palestine. 2 Geographie Politique. Les villes. Librairie Lecoffre.
  • Abel, F. M. (1949). Les livres des Maccabées. Éditions du Cerf.
  • Abel, Félix-Marie. Histoire de la Palestine depuis la conquête d'Alexandre jusqu'à l'invasion arabe. Paris, 1952.
  • Vincent, Louis-Hugues; Abel, Félix-Marie (1914). Bethléem, le sanctuaire de la nativité (in French). 1. Paris.
  • Vincent, Louis-Hugues; Abel, Félix-Marie (1923). Hébron: Le Haram el-Khalîl, sépulture des patriarches (in French). Ernest Leroux.
  • Vincent, L.-H., and Félix-Marie Abel. Jérusalem: Recherches de topographie, d'archéologie et d'histoire
  • Vincent, Louis-Hugues; Abel, Félix-Marie (1932). Emmaüs, Sa Basilique Et Son Histoire (in French). 1. Paris.

References

  1. 1 2 "Abel, Félix-Marie". Dictionnaire biographique des frères prêcheurs. Dominicains des provinces françaises (XIXe-XXe siècles) (in French). March 31, 2015. ISSN 2431-8736. Retrieved May 15, 2018.
  2. 1 2 בר-כוכבא, בצלאל; Bar-Kochva, Bezalel (2000). "François-Marie Abel / על פרנסואה-מארי אבל". Cathedra: For the History of Eretz Israel and Its Yishuv / קתדרה: לתולדות ארץ ישראל ויישובה (97): 172–173. JSTOR 23404651.
  3. ↑ Viviano, Benedict T. (1991). "Profiles of Archaeological Institutes: Ecole Biblique et Archéologique Française de Jérusalem". The Biblical Archaeologist. 54 (3): 160–67. JSTOR 3210264.
  4. ↑ Montagnes, Bernard (2006). The Story of Father Marie-Joseph Lagrange: Founder of Modern Catholic Bible Study. Paulist Press. ISBN 9780809143337.
  5. 1 2 3 4 Murphy-O'Connor, Jerome (2014). "Reading the Bible in the Land in Which It Was Written: A Dominican Vision". In Kelly, Gabrielle; Saunders, Kevin. Toward the Intelligent Use of Liberty: The Dominican Approaches in Education. ATF Press. pp. 185–94. ISBN 9781922239921.
  6. 1 2 "Abel, Félix-Marie". Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acref/9780195065121.001.0001/acref-9780195065121-e-2. Retrieved May 14, 2018.
  7. 1 2 3 R. D. (1953). "Le R. P. Félix-Marie Abel (1878–1953)". Syria. 30 (3/4): 374–75. JSTOR 4196764.
  8. ↑ William Francis Lynch (1852). Narrative of the United States' expedition to the river Jordan and the Dead sea. Blanchard and Lea. pp. 282–296. Retrieved November 10, 2010.
  9. ↑ Taylor, Joan E. (2015). The Essenes, the Scrolls, and the Dead Sea. Oxford University Press. p. 249. ISBN 9780198709749.
  10. ↑ Taylor, Joan E. (2009). "On Pliny, the Essene Location and Kh. Qumran". Dead Sea Discoveries. 16 (1): 1–21. JSTOR 40387637.
  11. ↑ Murphy-O'Connor, Jerome. "Abel, Félix-Marie". Oxford Biblical Studies Online. Retrieved May 15, 2018.
  12. ↑ בן-אריה, יהושע; Ben-Arieh, Yehoshua (1999). "Non-Jewish Institutions and the Research of Palestine during the British Mandate Period: Part Two / המוסדות הזרים לארכאולוגיה ולחקירת ארץ-ישראל בתקופת המנדט: חלק ב". Cathedra: For the History of Eretz Israel and Its Yishuv / קתדרה: לתולדות ארץ ישראל ויישובה (93): 111–142. JSTOR 23404547.
  13. ↑ Bovon, François (2003). "The Dossier on Stephen, the First Martyr". The Harvard Theological Review. 96 (3): 279–315. JSTOR 4151873.
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