Language - Religion - Culture [antikvár]

Professor Witold Tyloch died in Warsaw on August 23, 1990. An eminent Hebrew scholar, Semitist, and histórián of religions, he was alsó Chairman of the Polish Society for the Study of Religions, a member of the Executive Committee of the International Association for the History of Religions, and the editor-in-chief of 'Euhemer'. Witold Tyloch was born in Chojnice on March 16, 1927. Following high school graduation (Torun 1947), he studied at Adam Mickiewicz University (Poznan) and later at the Catholic University (Lublin) where he received his M.A. in biblical studies (1956) and his Ph.D. degree for the monograph The Jehovah Servant in Light of the Qumran Scrolls (1958). Simultaneously, he took courses in Semitics at the Institute of Orientál Studies in Warsaw (1957-59). In 1960 Witold Tyloch was appointed Adjunct Professor in the Department of Semitic Studies, University of Warsaw. His research in both Semitics and the history of the ancient Near East at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (1965-66) allowed him to complete the Habilitationsschrift Social Aspects of the Qumran Community (1968). In the same year he was appointed Associate Professor as well Director of the Department of African and Semitic Studies and then, for five years (1970-75), he held the office of Deputy Dean in the School of Modern Philologies, University of Warsaw. In the academic year 1973/74 he received a research grant from the Institut d'Etudes Semitiques, College de Francé, Paris, and, in 1980, he took up a guest professorship at the Yeshiva University, New York. In 1975 he received the title of Professor Extraordinarius and, eight years later, Professor Ordinarius (1983). Until his death he remained the head of the Department of Ancient Orientál, Egyptian, and Semitic Studies. Professor Tyloch scholarly interests were concentrated on the Qumran studies. Systematically, he published reviews of the new monographs on the Dead Sea Scrolls, survey articles presenting the main trends in interpreting the Scrolls or their fragments, philological and historical commentaries, as well as translations into Polish of the manuscripts. Thus, his monograph The Dead Sea Scrolls of Qumran (1963) contained translations of numerous Scrolls, equipped with both philological and historical comments, followed by a state-of-the-art