Samuel Cocking
Samuel Cocking (19 March 1845 in Camberwell London - 26 February 1914 in Yokohama, Japan) was a merchant in Yokohama arriving in 1869, shortly after the “Opening of Japan”. Although he was born in London, he moved with his parents to Australia at a young age and grew up mostly in Melbourne. In Japan he is known for the large greenhouse (660 m2 (7,100 sq ft)) and gardens that he developed in Enoshima that bears his name. However, a lot about his life and achievements are still not common knowledge in Japan.
He married Miyata Riki in 1872. Although Cocking and Miyata Riki did not have any children of their own, they adopted Miyata Riki's niece after her mother died at a young age. Cocking is buried in the Miyata family plot in a Buddhist cemetery in Yokohama, which is unusual for foreigners living in Japan at that time. Most foreigners (including Cocking's younger sister Florence who died shortly after joining her brother in Japan) were interred at the well known and well researched foreigners cemetery in Yokohama.
Samuel
Samuel (/ˈsæm.juː.əl/;Hebrew: שְׁמוּאֵל, Modern Shmu'el, Tiberian Šəmûʼēl; Arabic: صموئيل Ṣamuil; Greek: Σαμουήλ Samouēl; Latin: Samvel; Strong's: Shemuwel), literally meaning "Name of God" in Hebrew, is a leader of ancient Israel in the Books of Samuel in the Hebrew Bible. He is also known as a prophet and is mentioned in the second chapter of the Qur'an, although not by name.
His status, as viewed by rabbinical literature, is that he was the last of the Hebrew Judges and the first of the major prophets who began to prophesy inside the Land of Israel. He was thus at the cusp between two eras. According to the text of the Books of Samuel, he also anointed the first two kings of the Kingdom of Israel: Saul and David.
Biblical account
Family
Samuel's mother was Hannah and his father was Elkanah. Elkanah lived at Rama-thaim in the district of Zuph. His genealogy is also found in a pedigree of the Kohathites (1 Chron. 6:3-15) and in that of Heman, his great-grandson (ib. vi. 18-22). According to the genealogical tables, Elkanah was a Levite - a fact otherwise not mentioned in the books of Samuel. The fact that Elkanah, a Levite, was denominated an Ephraimite is analogous to the designation of a Levite belonging to Judah (Judges 17:7, for example).
Samuel (Raffi novel)
Samuel (Սամվել Samvel) is an 1886 Armenian language novel by the novelist Raffi. Considered by some critics his most successful work, the plot centres on the killing of the fourth-century Prince Vahan Mamikonian and his wife by their son Samuel.
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Samuel of Nehardea
Samuel of Nehardea or Samuel bar Abba (Hebrew: שמואל or שמואל ירחינאה) was a Jewish Talmudist who lived in Babylonia, known as an Amora of the first generation; son of Abba bar Abba and head of the Yeshiva at Nehardea. He was a teacher of halakha, judge, physician, and astronomer. He was born about 165 CE at Nehardea, in Babylonia and died there about 257 CE. As in the case of many other great men, a number of legendary stories are connected with his birth (comp. Halakot Gedolot, Giṭṭin, end; Tos. Ḳid. 73a s.v. Mai Ikka). In Talmudic texts, Samuel is frequently associated with Abba Arika, with whom he debated on many major issues. He was the teacher of Rabbi Judah ben Ezekiel. From the little biographical information gleaned from the Talmud, we know that Samuel was never ordained as a Tanna, that he was very precise with his words (Kidd. 70), and that he had a special affinity for astronomy: one of his best known sayings was that "The paths of heaven are as clear to me as the pathways of Nehardea."
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