Jean-Claude Haelewyck

Jean-Claude Haelewyck (born in 1952) is a Belgian professor emeritus, semiticist, researcher in the fields of the Old Latin Versions of the Bible and Syriac Studies at Centre d’Études Orientales in Institut Orientaliste de Louvain, Université catholique de Louvain and director of FNRS (Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique).

Life
Haelewyck studied at the Catholic University of Leuven, where he obtained a master's degree in biblical philology and a master's degree in oriental philology and history. He completed his doctorate in theology in 1984 with the thesis ''Le texte dit lucianique du livre d'Esther. Sa place parmi les diverses formes et sa logique propre'' at the Catholic University of Leuven.

Teaching
He worked at the Centre d'Études Orientales of the Institut Orientaliste de Louvain of the Université catholique de Louvain and was director and researcher at the Nationaal Fonds voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NFWO). He also was a professor at the Catholic University of Louvain-la-Neuve, president of the Belgian Academy for the Study of Ancient Near Eastern Languages (ABELAO) and editor of the online journal BABELAO.

Views
The contribution by Haelewyck in the Septuagint and Jewish pseudepigrapha, addresses the question of the annihilation of the other and reactions to this narrative element in the Greek tradition of the Book of Esther, in the Septuagint, the so-called "Lucianic" text and the Vetus Latina and its Greek model, by comparison with the story of Esther in the masoretic text.

J. C. Haelewyck in 1984, "defended his dissertation on the Lucianic text of the book of Esther", and he affirms that "passages where the AT and the Vetus Latina share the same text are passages where an old Hebrew text of the book of Esther becomes visible." Kristin De Troyer claim: "these passages are, indeed, very important, albeit in my opinion not for the Old Hebrew but rather for the Old Greek text."