A STR UC, JEAN, a celebrated French physician, was the son of a Protestant minister, and was born at Sauves, in Lower Languedoc, loth March 1684. He taught medicine first at Montpelier, and after wards in the college of France at Paris. He died 5th May 1766, at the age of 82. The fame which lie enjoyed during his lifetime rested chiefly on his abilities as a teacher, and on his medical writings, which were very numerous. These are now for gotten or neglected, whilst a work which he pub lished anonymously, and of which he seemed half ashamed, in the department of biblical literature, has secured for him a permanent reputation. This work appeared under the title of Conjectures sur les Memoires Originaux dent il out permir de era/re que Moise s'est semi pour composer he Livre de la Genbse, avec des Remarques qui appuient ou eclaircisseret ces Conjectmrs, Bruxelles (Paris), 1753, 12mo. In this work Astruc first fully broached the idea that in the composition of Genesis Moses made use of documents (memoires) the product of an earlier age. These he supposed to consist of two principal works, distinguished chiefly by the use of the names Elohim and Jehovah, as designations of the divine being, of which portions are distributed through the whole of Genesis ; but with these are mixed up fragments of ten other documents. Ile
thus regarded Genesis as a composition from twelve original sources, put together by Moses ; and he conjectured that these were originally placed in twelve columns, but through faults of the tran scribers came to be afterwards thrown confusedly and oftentimes erroneously together. This theory created an era in biblical inquiry. A crude hint to the same effect had, indeed, been thrown out by the older Vitringa (Obsesv. Sac., bk. i. ch. 4, § 2), but to Astruc belongs the credit of having first clearly enunciated it as a theory, and applied it to the Mosaic writings. Whether true or false, this theory has been in substance extensively embraced, and has been productive of numerous results. [GENESIS; PENTATEUCH.]—W. L. A.