John Lightfoot

John Lightfoot (1602–1675) was an English biblical scholar and Hebraist who spent decades studying the Talmud and rabbinic literature in order to illuminate the New Testament. His Horae Hebraicae et Talmudicae ("Hebrew and Talmudical Exercitations"), published between 1658 and 1674 and collected posthumously in a 1684 edition, provides verse-by-verse commentary on the Gospels, Acts, Romans, and 1 Corinthians, drawing extensively on the Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmuds, the Targums, and other rabbinic sources to explain Jewish customs, idioms, geography, and institutions that illuminate the New Testament text. A Canon of Ely and master of St Catharine's College, Cambridge, he also served as Vice-Chancellor of the University. His work remains an unrivaled resource for understanding the Jewish cultural and linguistic background of the New Testament.