Otho, Johannes Heinrich

Otho, Johannes Heinrich a noted Swiss Hebraist, was born April 15, 1651, at Berne, in Switzerland. He received his education in his native place, went in 1669 to Lausanne, thence to Saumur, Orleans, Paris, and Oxford. In 1673 he returned to his native country, was appointed public teacher of philosophy at Lausanne, where he died, July 16, 1719, after having occupied some pastorates in different places. Otho published several works on the Hebrew, which to this day are used with great advantage, viz. Lexicon Rabbini cophilologicum in quo ordine alphabetico notantur et referuntur principue quae circa patrum hebreorum dogmata, ritus et statuta in utroque Talmude, laimonidis et aliorum scriptis occurrunt (Basle, 1675); enlarged edition by Zacharias (Altona, 1757). In a later edition, which was published at Geneva in 1675, the Talmudical treatise Shekalim, with notes and a Latin translation by the same author, is also given: — הִמַּשׁנָה שִׁלשֶׁלֶת הִכמֵי i.e. Historia doctorum Mischnicorum quo opere etiam Synedrii magni Hierosolymitani presides et viceprcesides recensentur (Oxf. 1672; later ed. by Reland, Amst. 1698). See Wolf, Bibl. Hebr.; Furst. Bibl. Jud. 3:59 sq.; Jocher, Allgenzeines Gelehrten-Lexikon, 3:1142; Supplement by Rotermund, v. 1273 sq.; Bibl. Brenensi Class. vol. vi, fasc. ii, p. 291 sq. (B. P.)