Word: josephus
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Died. Lion Feuchtwanger, 74, Munich-born novelist (Proud Destiny, Josephus, The Pretender, Jephta and His Daughter, This Is the Hour), anti-Nazi who escaped from a concentration camp dressed as a woman and made his way to the U.S. during World War II; in Los Angeles...
...Josephus Jones (a watcher of trends, an economist): Couldn't agree more, Art. I'm tired of euphemisms myself...
...sacrifice of his daughter Iphigenia at Aulis. Like Author Fast's Moses, Author Feuchtwanger's book falls far short of the story's greatest possibilities, but it is told competently and plausibly in the simple, direct language of a veteran historical novelist (Jew Suss, Josephus). Both books reflect the intelligent spirit of the text that Author Feuchtwanger takes from Spinoza: "I have honestly endeavored not to laugh at the actions of men, nor to bemoan them, nor to abhor them, but to understand them...
...Another ingenious line of thought reasons that the Teacher was one Eleazar, in the reign of Simon's son, John Hyrcanus (134 to 104 B.C.). Hyrcanus, according to the Jewish historian Josephus, was friendly to the anti-Hellenist Pharisees ("Separators") who clung to the old ways. Once Hyrcanus gave a dinner for their leaders, and after dinner invited their opinions on his rule, whereupon Eleazar bluntly told him he had no right to the High Priesthood. Promptly, John Hyrcanus switched his favor to the pro-Hellenistic Sadducees and the Pharisaic observances were forbidden. It is not hard to imagine...
...locusts and wild honey, and proclaiming, like the Essenes, Isaiah's words about making "straight in the desert a highway for our God." It has been suggested that John had been adopted as a child and raised by the Essenes, as was their custom. "They neglect wedlock," writes Josephus, "but choose out other persons' children, while they are pliable . . . and form them according to their own manners...