The chair inHebrew, Chaldaic and Syriac languages, held by Ernest Renan for thirty years (1862-1892), was dedicated to the linguistic and philological study of ancient Hebrew and Aramaic, attested in various forms by inscriptions and ancient Jewish and Christian religious texts. Renan was responsible for pioneering works in French, such as the Corpus inscriptionum semiticarum and philological studies of biblical books like Job, Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes.

More broadly, however, Ernest Renan's aim was to account for theSemitic" spirit ", which he differentiated from the Greek spirit. He saw the former as inferior, while recognizing that the Jews had a unique place in the history of humanity, linked in particular to the production of the Bible, which he saw as a bridge between East and West. In this sense, Renan's work at the Collège de France also had a strong historical-religious component. Despite an ideological prejudice that was common in his day, and which we cannot accept today, this historical interest in the Jewish and Christian religions, coupled with a sharp philological approach, led Renan to produce new syntheses on the historical foundations of these two religions. His Life of Jesus renewed (even revolutionized) the discussion on the origins of Christianity, which he explained in purely historical terms. Renan was also instrumental in bringing to France the scientific theories on the formation of the Pentateuch, which were being developed in Germany in particular. He was himself a major player in this debate, and was the originator of ideas that are still useful in accounting for the birth of the Torah, a birth that he situated, as is still thought today, at the time of Achaemenid Persian domination (c. V-IV c. BC).

Renan's work thus represented a major impulse in the historical study of Jewish and Christian religions, while remaining marked by problematic ideological presuppositions and certain conceptions that could also be described as theological.