DIEZ MACHO, ALEJANDRO°

DIEZ MACHO, ALEJANDRO° (1916–1985), Spanish Catholic priest and Bible scholar. Diez was born in Villafria de la Pena. After his ordination in 1939, he studied Semitic philology at the University of Barcelona. He joined the faculty of the same university in 1944 and occupied the chair of Hebrew language and rabbinic language and literature. His doctoral dissertation, Mose ibn Ezra, was published in 1953. Diez' main fields of interest, in which he published many articles, are medieval Hebrew literature and biblical research, especially the Aramaic translations of the Bible. In 1957 he began publishing a critical edition of the Targums in Biblia poliglotta Matritensia. Diez made important manuscript discoveries regarding both the Palestinian and Babylonian Targums; his rediscovery of the famous Targum manuscript Neofiti aroused considerable international attention. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: P.E. Kahle, Cairo Geniza (Eng., 19592), passim; Punta Europa (March 3, 1956), 141–59. ADD BIBLIOGRAPHY: L. Díez Merino, in: D. Muñoz León (ed.), Salvación en la palabra: …en memoria del profesor Alejandro Díez Macho (1986), 827–48. (Victor A. Mirelman)