Sebastian Munster

Sebastian Münster (20 January 1488 – 26 May 1552), was a German cartographer, cosmographer, and a Christian Hebraist scholar. His work, the Cosmographia from 1544, was the earliest German description of the world.

He was born in Ingelheim, near Mainz, the son of Andreas Münster. His parents and other ancestors were farmers. In 1505, he entered the Franciscan order. Four years later, he entered a monastery where he became a student of Konrad Pelikan for five years. Münster completed his studies at the Universität Tubingen in 1518. His graduate adviser was Johannes Stöffler.

He left the Franciscans for the Lutheran Church in order to accept an appointment at the Reformed Church-dominated University of Basel in 1529. He had long harbored an interest in the Lutherans, and during the German Peasants' War, as a monk, he had been repeatedly attacked. A professor of Hebrew, and a disciple of Elias Levita, he edited the Hebrew Bible (2 vols. fol., Basel, 1534-1535), accompanied by a Latin translation and a large number of annotations. He was the first German to produce an edition of the Hebrew Bible.

He published more than one Hebrew grammar, and was the first to prepare a Grammatica Chaldaica (Basel, 1527). His lexicographical labours included a Dictionarium Chaldaicum (1527), and a Dictionarium trilingue for Latin, Greek, and Hebrew in 1530.

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