Joseph-Ernest Renan (1823–92)

French philologist. Assistant, department of manuscripts, Bibliothèque Nationale, 1851. Member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, 1856. Professor of Hebrew and Chaldaic languages, Collège de France, 1862–4. Lost the professorship following publication of his highly controversial Vie de Jésus in 1863; reinstated, 1870. Member of the Académie Française, 1878.