Family Name: Stennett
First Name: Joseph
Birth Date: 1661
Birth Place: Abingdon
Death Date: Sun, Jul 09, 1713
Death Place: Knaphill
Main places of activity:
Place From To
London 1683 1711
Personal info:
Education

Stennett was educated at the Wallingford Grammar School in Berkshire by his sabbatarian father Edward Stennett and his brother Jehudah.

He there became proficient in ancient Greek, Hebrew, French and Italian, and acquired a deep knowledge of liberal sciences, philosophy and holy scriptures.
Career

From 1685 Stennett became schoolmaster in London and by the end of 1686 he joined the Seventh Day Baptist congregation, where he was ordained pastor on the 4th of March 1690. He at times lectured to the General Baptist congregation in the 1690s.
Financial Situation

He married in 1688 the Huguenot exile Susanna Gill, whose 12.000 pounds worth estates and buildings were however seized in 1698.
Translations Other Works

translations activities

According to one of his biographers, Stennett dedicated most of his 'leisure hours' to the translation of French works into English.


His translation of Las Casas' Miscellanea had however the evident political purpose of undermining the legitimacy of the Spanish dominions in America during the Spanish Succession Crisis (1697-1701).


There is partial evidence his studies of the Scriptures also resulted in translations from Hebrew and ancient Greek, but authorship remains in most cases difficult to ascertain.


secondary bibliography references

S. L. Copson, "Stennett, Joseph (1663–1713), Seventh Day Baptist minister", in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2004

Michael A. G. Haykin, "'At Thy Table... Thy Loveliness I View'. The person of Jesus Christ in the hymns of Joseph Stennett I", Baptist Quarterly, 45, n°2 (April 2013), pp. 69-86.

The Works of the late Reverend and Learned Mr. Joseph Stennett; to which is prefix'd some account of his life, 5 vols., London, J. Darby, 1752.

J. R. Watson, The English Hymn: A Critical and Historical Study, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1999, pp. 127-132.

Translations

  • Oeuvres de Platon

  • Translation Title: The Works of Plato abridg'd, with an account of his life, philosophy, morals and politicks, together with a translation of his choicest dialogues
  • Original Author: André Dacier
  • Original title: Oeuvres de Platon
  • Publ. Year From: 1698 to:
  • lang: French
  • Translation: The Works of Plato abridg'd, with an account of his life, philosophy, morals and politicks, together with a translation of his choicest dialogues
  • Publisher: A. Bell
  • Pub. Place: London
  • Pub. Date: 1700
  • Lang: English
  • Note:

    With some alterations to the original translation, this edition was reissued in 1719, 1739, 1749 and 1772.

  • Collected works

  • Translation Title: An account of the first voyages and discoveries made by the Spaniards in America containing the most exact relation hitherto publish'd, of their unparallel'd cruelties on the Indians, in the destruction of above forty millions of people : with the propositions offer'd to the King of Spain to prevent the further ruin of the West-Indies
  • Original Author: Bartolomé de Las Casas
  • Original title: Collected works
  • Publ. Year From: 1517 to: 1553
  • lang: Spanish
  • Title: Relation des voyages et des découvertes que les Espagnols ont fait dans les Indes occidentales, écrite par Dom B. de Las-Casas, évêque de Chiapa. Avec la Relation curieuse des voyages du sieur de Montauban, capitaine des flibustiers, en Guinée, l'an 1695
  • Publisher: André Pralard
  • Pub. Place: Paris
  • Pub. Year: 1696
  • Lang: French
  • Note:

    Bellegarde translated and resumed many of Las Casas' works, and this volume in French constituted the source for Stennett's work.

    Among the translated volumes in Bellegarde's edition figure Historia de Indias (1517), Memorial de los remedios (1542), Aquí hay una disputa o controversia entre Fray Bartolomé de las Casas [...] y Doctor Ginés de Sepúlveda (1552), Sobre el título del dominio del Rey de España sobre las personas y tierras de los indios (1554) and the very famous Brevíssima relación de la destruición de las Indias (1554).

  • Translation: An account of the first voyages and discoveries made by the Spaniards in America containing the most exact relation hitherto publish'd, of their unparallel'd cruelties on the Indians, in the destruction of above forty millions of people : with the propositions offer'd to the King of Spain to prevent the further ruin of the West-Indies
  • Publisher: J. Darby
  • N° Editions: 2
  • Pub. Place: London
  • Pub. Date: 1698
  • Lang: English
  • Note:

    This work is listed in an advertisement for ’Books printed by J. Darby’ in Algernon Sidney’s Discourses concerning government, 1704. The translator is named in the advertisement as ’Mr. Sennett’, i.e. Joseph Stennett.
     

    A different edition of the same work was issued on the same year, under the alternative title A relation of the first voyages and discoveries made by the Spaniards in America.

  • Song of Songs

  • Translation Title: A Version of Solomon's Song of Songs
  • Original Author: Solomon
  • Original title: Song of Songs
  • Publ. Year From: -0001 to:
  • lang: Hebrew
  • Note:

    The

    Song of Songs

    constitutes one of the books of the Old Testament.
  • Translation: A Version of Solomon's Song of Songs
  • Publisher: Daniel Brown
  • N° Editions: 2
  • Pub. Place: London
  • Pub. Date: 1699
  • Lang: English
  • Note:

    Stennett's translation was reissued in 1709.

calamaio

By:

  • Giovanni Lista