Louis Segond

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Jacques-Jean-Louis Segond (born May 3, 1810 in Plainpalais, a suburb of Geneva , † June 18, 1885 in Geneva) was a Swiss theologian who created a new French translation of the Bible from the original languages.

Life

Segond came from a humble background. The father was a Roman Catholic of French descent who owned a shoemaker's shop on the Rue de la Croix-d'or and had served in the army of Napoléon Bonaparte ; the mother was a Protestant woman from Geneva. The two sons were baptized in the Reformed Church.

In 1826 Segond entered the Geneva Academy , where he was initially interested in the natural sciences and medicine, but in 1830 switched to studying theology. In 1834 he obtained a bachelor's degree in theology from the University of Strasbourg with a thesis on the book of Ruth and was accepted into the Geneva church service. In 1835 he also received his theological license in Strasbourg with a French work on Kohelet and a Latin work on the Old Testament conception of Sheol . Just one year later he received his doctorate in theology with a dissertation on De la nature de l'inspiration chez les auteurs et dans les écrits du Nouveau Testament (On the nature of inspiration among authors and in the writings of the New Testament) .

As a representative of a moderate supranaturalism, Segond was closer to old Protestant orthodoxy than to contemporary liberalism . Nevertheless, in 1837 he translated the monologues by Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher into French. During his time in Strasbourg he spent a year and a half in Bonn as a student of the Arabist Georg Wilhelm Freytag and a year in Eisenach .

In 1836 he returned to Geneva and acquired Geneva citizenship in 1839 in order to be able to take up a pastorate in the Geneva suburb of Chêne-Bougeries . There he remained in office for 24 years and also published scientific works such as the Traité élémentaire des accents hébreux, envisagés comme signes de ponctuation (1841/1874), the Géographie de la Terre sainte (1856/1886) and his Chrestomatie biblique (1864) which was a preliminary study for a complete new translation of the Bible.

In 1864 Segond resigned from his pastoral office, moved to the city and was commissioned by the Company of Pastors on July 1st to complete a new translation of the Old Testament over a period of six and a half years. He completed it on January 6, 1871, and in 1873 (dated 1874) it was published under the title Ancien Testament, traduction nouvelle d'après le texte hébreu .

On December 20, 1872, Segond was appointed Professor of Hebrew Studies and Biblical Exegesis at the Geneva Academy.

plant

His translation of the Old Testament was a great success, and so he supplemented it with a translation of the New Testament based on the critical text edition by Konstantin von Tischendorf , which appeared in 1880.

Segond's text was later revised by a commission of experts and the revised text was published in 1910 . This text remained in use for decades and is now freely available on the Internet. In 2007, after twelve years of work, the Sociéte Biblique de Genève presented and published the "Segond 21". The "Segond 21" is sold in a simple book edition at a price of CHF 2.50 (approx. EUR 1.50) in large numbers and is available free of charge on the Internet.

The Louis Segond Bible has become the actual French reference translation and has the same meaning in the French-speaking area as the Luther Bible in German or the King James Bible in the English-speaking area.

family

The organist and music teacher Pierre Segond (1913–2000) is his great-grandson.

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Segond, Louis
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Segond, Jacques-Jean-Louis (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss theologian
DATE OF BIRTH May 3, 1810
PLACE OF BIRTH Geneva
DATE OF DEATH June 18, 1885
Place of death Geneva