Marcel Simon (1907-1986), scholar

Marcel Simon (1907-1986) was a French scholar.

Biography

Marcel Simon was a historian of religions. He studied at the middle school of Thann, then at the high school Louis-le-Grand, then at the École normale supérieure. Received in the aggregation of history, he became a boarder of the French School of Rome. During the Second World War he contributed to the Liberation from the Nazis. An expert of Scandinavian, Hebraic and Jewish cultures, and of the the Islamic world, he founded in Strasbourg the Institute of the history of religion, and the Research center of the history of religion. He become professor of History of Religion and he has been the Doyen of the Faculty of Literature and Arts in Strasbourg University. He was a specialist of the relationship between Christianity and Judaism in early Christianity. His works not only follow the new appreciation about Judaism before 70, but also contributes to a changing view about Rabbinic Judaism after 135. For Simon Judaism is a dynamic and missionary religion, in competition with early Christianity, until the 5th century CE. He was member of the Institut de France (Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres).