Joseph Halévy

While a teacher in Jewish schools, first in his native town and later in Bucharest, he devoted his leisure to the study of Oriental languages and archeology, in which he became proficient.

In 1879 Halévy became professor of Ethiopic in the École pratique des hautes études, Paris, and librarian of the Société Asiatique.

Contrary to the generally admitted opinion, Halévy put forward the theory that Sumerian is not a language, but merely an ideographic method of writing invented by the Semitic Babylonians themselves.

For the student of specifically Jewish learning the most noteworthy of Halévy's works is his "Recherches Bibliques," wherein he shows himself to be a decided adversary of the so-called higher criticism.

The contradictions found in these narratives, and which are responsible for the belief of modern critics in a multiplicity of authors, disappear upon close examination.