RELAND, ADRIAN°

RELAND, ADRIAN° (Hadrian; 1676–1718), Dutch Orientalist and theologian. Reland studied at Utrecht, was appointed professor of philosophy at Harderwijk in 1699, and professor of Oriental languages and antiquities at Utrecht in 1701. He published Antiquitates sacrae veterum Hebraeorum (1708) and De spoliis templi Hierosolymitani in arcu Titiaco Romae conspicuis liber singularis (Utrecht, 1716). Reland's major work was Palaestina ex monumentis veteribus illustrata (2 vols., 1714), in which he collected all the knowledge then available on the historical geography of Ereẓ Israel and its ancient sites, arranging the latter alphabetically. His sources included not only the writings of classical authors, but also those of the church historians, the Lives of the Saints, and talmudic literature which he quotes in the original. Reland also recorded Nabatean and Palmyrene inscriptions, though he was unable to decipher them. All later Orientalists made use of his monumental compilation which is of value even today.