The French biblical scholar Richard Simon was born in Dieppe, France, and studied with the Oratorians and the Jesuits and at the Sorbonne, specializing in Hebrew and Near Eastern studies. Before being ordained a priest in 1670, he taught philosophy at an Oratorian college. He soon became one of the foremost experts in Hebrew, Judaism, and Eastern Church history. Influenced by Benedict (Baruch) de Spinoza's critique of the Bible and by the theory of his friend and fellow Oratorian, Isaac La Peyrère, that there were men before Adam, Simon began developing his views about the Bible and church doctrine. His first published work, a defense of the Jews of Metz (1670), attacked Christian anti-Semitism. It was followed by a study of the Eastern Church, another of Jewish ceremonies and customs, and an attack on the monks of Fécamp. His most important and revolutionary work...