SURENHUIS, WILHELM°

SURENHUIS, WILHELM° (Surenhuysen, Gulielmus Surenhusius; (1666–1729), Dutch Hebraist. Surenhuis was professor of Greek and Hebrew at the Amsterdam Athenaeum Illustre and was in close touch with the German Orientalist Johann christof wolff of Hamburg. He published Dissertatio de natura Pandectarum Hebraicarum (1704), the exegetical "New Testament catalogue" Sefer ha-Mashweh (1713), and De oratione Dominica Hebraica (1715), a Hebrew version of the Christian "Lord's Prayer" (with various translations into other languages). However, he is best remembered for his monumental Versio Latina Mischnae et Commentationes Maimonidis et Obadjae Bertinoro … (6 vols., 1698–1703) in Hebrew and Latin. Although Surenhuis used a manuscript Spanish version by jacob abendana in preparing his edition, much of the work was original and 40 tractates of the Mishnah were translated by the editor himself. An earlier Latin version by Isaac Abendana, Jacob's brother, remains in manuscript (University of Cambridge, 1663–75). A catalogue of Surenhuis' library appeared in 1730. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Steinschneider, Cat Bod, 2663; J.W. Wesselius and P.T. van Rooden, in: StRos, 26 (1992), 136–48. P.T. van Rooden, in: Hebrew Study from Ezra to Ben-Yehuda (1999), 257–67. (Irene E. Zwiep (2nd ed.)