Beck(Ius), Matthias Friedrich°

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BECK(IUS), MATTHIAS FRIEDRICH°

BECK(IUS), MATTHIAS FRIEDRICH° (1649–1701), German Lutheran Orientalist. Born in Kaufbeuren (Swabia), Beck studied at Augsburg and Jena (1668–70), under the renowned philologist Johann Frischmuth. His competence in Oriental languages was very broad, Jewish interests being reflected in his translation into Latin of the Targum to Chronicles (1680–83) and publication of Jewish antiquities discovered in Augsburg (Monumenta antiqua judaica Augustae Vindelicorum reperta, 1686). His voluminous unpublished works, now mostly dispersed, included translations of Benjamin of Tudela's and Petaḥiah of Regensburg's travelogues.

bibliography:

J.B. Luhn, M. Fr. Beckii Memoria (Wittenberg, 1703); H. Pipping, Memoria Theologorum (Leipzig, 1705), 911f.; adb, 2 (1875), 218. add. bibliography: Steinschneider, in: zhb, 2 (1897), 102, F. Junginger in: Kaufbeurer Geschichtsblätter, 4 (1965), 121–124.

[Raphael Loewe /

Giulio Busi (2nd ed.)]