Boschenstein, Johann

Boschenstein, Johann, a German professor of Hebrew, was born at Esslingen in 1472. On account of his knowledge of the Hebrew language, which he taught at Ingolstadt in 1489, and where Andreas Osiander attended his lectures, some believed him to be a converted Jew. From Augsburg he was called by duke Frederick the Wise, in 1518, as professor of Hebrew and Greek, to Wittenberg; from thence he went to Nuremberg, Heidelberg, Antwerp, and Zurich; and finally returned again to Augsburg, where he died after 1539. He was the greatest teacher after Reuchlin, and many of the reformers, as Luther, Melancthon, Zwingli, Eik, etc., were among his hearers. He wrote, Elementale Introductorium in Hebraicas Literas, Teutonica et Hebr. Legendas (Augsburg, 1514; Wittenberg, 1518; Cologne, 1521): — Rudimenta Hebraica Mos. Kimchi (Augsburg, 1520). He is also the author of some hymns, the best of which is his Da Jesus an dem Kreutze stund (Engl. transl. by Jacobi in Psalmodia Germanica, 1, 17, "When Christ hunlg on the cursed tree"), which he composed in 1515, and which was sung before the Reformation in some churches during the Passion-week; See Kihler, Beytrage zur deutschen Kunst- und Literaturgeschichte (Leipsic, 1794)j ii, 1-23; Furst, Bibl. Jud. i, 127 Steinschneider, Bibliogr. Handbuch, p. 23 sq.; Geiger, Das Studium der Hebrdischen Sprache in Deutschland (Breslau, 1870), p. 48 sq.; Koch, Gesch. deutschen Kirchenliedes, i, 219 sq.; ii, 469. sq. (B. P.)