Author | Samuel Bochart |
---|---|
Language | Latin |
Genre | Biblical criticism |
Publication date | 1646 |
Publication place | Caen, France |
Geographia Sacra seu Phaleg et Canaan (in English: "Sacred Geography or Peleg and Canaan") is a work of biblical criticism and world history by French author Samuel Bochart, first published in 1646. It was originally written in two books, combined in later editions.
The first volume, entitled Phaleg, seu de Dispersione Gentium et Terrarum Divisione Facta in Aedificatione Turris Babel ("Peleg or the Dispersion of Nations and the Division of Lands Made in the Building of the Tower of Babel"), was devoted to the Generations of Noah and the modern names of the tribes lists in Genesis 10. The second book, originally entitled Chanaan seu de Coloniis Et Sermone Phoenicum ("Canaan or On the Colonies and the Phoenician Language"), studied the history of Phoenician colonization and the Phoenician and Punic languages.[1][2] The work was highly influential in seventeenth-century Biblical exegesis and modern Phoenician historiography.
Peleg was the first detailed analysis of the Generations of Noah since classical times, becoming – and remaining – the locus classicus for such scholarship.[3]
Canaan was the first full-length book devoted to the Phoenicians, creating a framework narrative for future scholars of a maritime-based trading society with linguistic and philological influence across the region.[4] By doing this, the work also established the foundations for the comparative science of Semitic antiquities.[5][6]
The first full-length work devoted to the Phoenicians was Samuel Bochart's Geographia Sacra (1646)... In many ways, the Geographia Sacra sets the pattern for the predominant modes of engagement with the Phoenicians to this day: focus on their maritime voyages and impact on the classical world on the one hand; the Phoenician language's linguistic and philological relationship with Greek and Hebrew on the other.