BUXTORF, JOHANNES (THE ELDER)

Johannes Buxtorf I (or the Elder) was a distinguished Hebraist and professor of Hebrew at the University of Basle. His book Synagoga Judaica enjoyed several editions in its Latin version. The original German title was Juden Schuel. EJ, Vol. IV, col. 1543. The English physician and alchemist Edmund Dickinson (1624-1707) published his first work Delphi Phoenicizantes in Oxford in 1655. The book is a philological and etymological attempt to demonstrate that the Greek stories of Delphos and Apollo's battle with the Python were derived from the Hebrew accounts of Joshua, and that Bacchus and Hercules were based on Moses and Joshua. The appendix concerns Noah's arrival in Italy and the origin of the Druids. The book, in Latin, is generously interspersed with Greek and Hebrew types