Jacob Licht, born in 1922 in Vienna, grew up and studied in Brno. Since 1939 he was living in Jerusalem. He studied at the Hebrew University, where he received his Ph.D. in 1956. Then he taught at the Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan. From 1969 until 1990 Licht served as Professor of Biblical Studies at the Tel Aviv University. Jacob Licht passed away in Jerusalem, on October 18, 1992. The memorial volume, Or le-Yaʿaqob, prepared by Professor Frank Polak, has to appear in 1997. Licht worked with Professor Eleazar Lipa Sukenik on the edition of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Licht's doctoral dissertation, commented edition of the Thanksgiving Semil (1QH) was published in 1957. Similar edition of The Rule Scroll (1QS, and Sa, Sb), appeared in 1957. Licht dealt in his articles with varíous themes concerning the Dead Sea Scrolls. Most of Licht's publications are in Hebrew, in English he wrote his book Storytelling in the Bible (1978). Volumes 1 and 2 of Licht's detailed Hebrew commentary to the Book of Numbers appeared in 1985 and 1991; the third volume, edited by Shemuel Achituv, was published posthumously in 1995. Jacob Licht contributed many articles to Hebrew Encyclopaedia Biblica, he was also member of its editorial committee. Licht's first language was Czech, but he had no opportunity to publish in this language. At least some samples of his valuable publications should be made accessible in translation in the country where he grew up.
Jak židovská skupina karaitská začátkem středověku, tak protestanti a zvláště Čeští bratří v závěru středověku se řídili výlučně biblí a neuznávali pozdější tradice. Karité uplatňovali tyto zásady péčí o spolehlivé opisy hebrejské bible; vzorné opisy byly uznávány jako autoritativní i jejich rabanitskými kritiky. Karaitské rukopisy z Ben Ašerovy školy jsou základem nyní používaných vědeckých edic. Čeští bratří se věnovali pečlivému překládání bible do češtiny v 16. a začátkem 17. století. Jejich bible vydané v Kralicích na Moravě byly používány též katolickými vydavateli v době pritreformace. Toto strukturální srovnání dvou navzájem vzdálených jevů je předkládáno jako podnět k diskusi.
First alphabetic cuneiform tablets were found on Ras Shamra at the Mediterranean shore in Northern Syria by French archaeological expedition led by Claude Schaeffer in 1929. Thanks to expeditious publication by Charles Virolleaud the seript was soon deciphered. The language of the Old Canaanite texts was made understandable with help of related Hebrew and also Arabic. Among these texts religious poetry is well represented; it is composed in parallelistic verses consisting of two cola (the term "dicolon" coresponds to world attested in Greek, the commonly used "bicolon" is a combination of Latin and Greek components) or three cola ("tricolon"). ...