DUPONT-SOMMER, ANDRÉ°

DUPONT-SOMMER, ANDRÉ° (1900–1983), French Bible scholar. Dupont-Sommer was director of studies at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes from 1938, professor at the Sorbonne from 1945, professor of Hebrew and Aramaic at the Collège de France from 1963, and president of the Institut d'Etudes Sémitiques of the University of Paris from 1952. He undertook archaeological excavations in the Near East from 1925 to 1934. Dupont-Sommer was one of the first interpreters of the Dead Sea Scrolls. He published many articles and a number of books on them, including three that have been translated into English under the titles The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Preliminary Survey (1952), The Jewish Sect of Qumran and the Essenes (1954), and The Essene Writings from Qumran (1961). His Les Araméens (1949) is an outstanding contribution on the Arameans. His publication of an important collection of several hundred Aramaic ostraca discovered in the French excavations at Elephantine, conducted by C. Clermont-Ganneau, has increased the knowledge of the Aramaic of the Book of Ezra and of the culture of the Jews of Egypt in the Persian period. His other published works include La doctrine gnostique de la lettre "Waw" d'après une lamelle araméene inédite (1946), Les inscriptions araméennes de Sfiré (1958), and Observations sur le commentaire d'Habacuc découvert près de la Mer Morte (1950). (Zev Garber)