jorum – an unusually capacious bowl or goblet (Charles E. Funk)
[Believed to be derived from this bible passage: Then Toi sent Joram his son unto king David, to salute him … And Joram brought with him vessels of silver, and vessels of gold, and vessels of brass. II Samuel 8:10]

Charles Dickens was apparently fond of this word. He used it in five novels (Oliver Twist, Great Expectations, Martin Chuzzlewit, The Pickwick Papers, The Old Curiosity Shop), and in lesser works.

As to what you say in your letter about introspection & scruples, you must remember how much bigger than itself a think becomes by being put in writing. A very small dose of self-examination, so small as to be quite wholesome, looks a positive jorum in a letter.
– C.S. Lewis, family letter

The amiable creature beguiled the watches of the night by brewing jorums of a fearful beverage, which he called coffee, and insisted on sharing with me ; coming in with a great bowl of something like mud soup.
– Louisa May Alcott, Hospital Sketches

Recently, an editoriallist sadly commented that we have lost the farmility with the bible that had made it part of our normal conversational culture. Nowadays, if you should allude to a biblical passage, you cannot expert your hearer to understand the allusion.

That has inspired our new theme on "biblical eponyns". Perhaps we can do our small bit to counteract that trend the editorialist noted. I quote below about a quarter of the editorial.

Do we need to know what it says in the Bible? Are we somehow illiterate if we don't? Up until, say, 100 years ago, biblical literacy would have been practically mandatory. If you didn't know … you would have been excluded from the culture. It might be said that a civilization consists, at its core, of these easily transmitted packages of implication. They are one of the mechanisms by which cultures can be both efficient and rich.

But I would guess that biblical literacy is a thing of the past. The lingua franca of modern, English-speaking people is not dense with scriptural allusion [or] reference to classical civilizations. If you dropped the names of Nestor, Agamemnon or Pericles, you would, I think, draw a near total blank from even educated listeners. The references we make today are not to these ancient sources of meaning. The references we make today tend to come from more recent worlds: Jefferson and Lincoln, Nelson and Churchill; Madonna not the Madonna, Britney not Brutus.

Does it matter that we have tended to drop the old referential structures? This is not necessarily a disaster. … But it is at least a shame, the fading of an aspect of our civilization that has enriched it. Without the set of archetypes and fount of wisdom in the Bible, our lives would be thinner and poorer.
– Adam Nicolson, Wall Street Journal, Sept. 23, 2005

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Samson – a man of great physical strength.
[After the biblical strong-man whose tale is told in Judges xiii-xvi.]

Since the definition reads in the meter of a limerick, it seems appropriate to use a limerick (non-original) as our illustrative quote.

A comely young woman Ransom
Was ravished three times in a hansom.
When she cried out for more,
A voice from the floor
Said, "Lady, I'm Simpson, not Samson."

As a bonus, that verse gives us another eponym:
hansom – a two-wheeled horse-drawn cab, with the driver seated behind
[after Joseph A. Hansom (1803-82), English architect, who designed it about 1834]

jumping Jehosaphat – used as a mild expletive ( Amer.Eng.), with an old-fashioned and countrified feel
[Several parts of the bible tell of the story of Jehosaphat, king of Judah, whose name has several different spellings. See 1 Kings ch.22; 2 Kings ch.3, and 2 Chronicles ch.17–22.]

So I went to a dentist. So help me, I had forgotten what he would see when he looked into my mouth. He blinked, moved his mirror around, and said, "Great jumping Jehosaphat! Who was your dentist?"
– Robert A. Heinlein, The Door into Summer

Jehosaphat as an interjection, first recorded in 1857, was probably a euphemism for Jehovah. This would be like many other oaths that take, but coyly alter, a holy name. Thus oh God! and Jesus! become the oaths egad! and jeez!

Jumping had been added to other oaths, as in Jumping Geraniums!, Jumping Jellybeans!, Jumping Juleps!, Jumping Jupiter!, and Jumping Jiminy Cricket! (Notice that Jiminy Cricket plays off the initials of Jesus Christ.) Within a decade the verbal Jehosaphat was sometimes one who jumped (Mayne Reid, 1866¹: By the jumpin’ Geehosofat).

But at the time other forms were used as well, including an alliterative one. (George Washington Harris 1867: by the jinglin' Jehosephat), and the prevailing form seems to have been simply Jehosephat! or Great Jehosephat!, without jumping. No one has explained why jumping Jehosaphat ultimately prevailed.

Your wordcrafter may have discovered why. Recall that newspapers constantly need brief "filler" items to fill up the short games between articles. Here's one from the 1880s:

A Yankee came running down to a pier just as a steamer was starting. The boat moved off some four or five yards as he took a jump, and, coming down on the back of his head on deck, he lay stunned for two or three minutes. When he came to the boat had gone the best part of a quarter of a mile, and, raising his head and looking to the shore, the Yankee said: “Great Jehosaphat, what a jump!"

Oddly, I've found this anecdote told, word-for-word, in two papers, in Alabama (Vernon Clipper, 9/24/1880) and Illinois (Decatur Daily Review, 8/1/1881). Since those papers they are far apart geographically, neither is likely to have gotten it from the other. Rather, one would guess that they each got it from the same source, a source that was providing "filler" for those two papers, and for others. If that's the case – if we find the same anecdote in other old papers as they are brought on line – it would explain why the concept of jumping Jehosaphat spread in the public mind.

¹Edited, to correct the '1966' date to '1866'.

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Sorry to be long-winded, but this follow-up will bring you a grin.
The earlier writers often treat Jehosapaht! as the sort of oath that a country bumpkin or a rube would use. That is, a character using that word is often portrayed as the butt of a joke, or as an illiterate. For example:

● Butts of jokes: the above 1880/81 steamboat story, and this further tale:
She was obliged to lift her dress as she crossed Main Street, as the street was muddy and she had on striped stockings. They were yellow stripes and green, and looked like a lot of crawling snakes; and a prominent citizen gazed on them in horror as he remarked, "Jehosaphat, I never had 'em that bad before," and right there he registered a vow that he would join the [temperance] movement. – Fred. H. Hart, Sazerac Lying Club (1878)

● Illiterate characters: the above 1867 and 1866 quotes, expanded:
‘By the jumpin’ Geehosofat, what a gurl she air sure enuf!’

Sut said carelessly, "Oh, nuffin but his note, I speck. Say yu thar mister a-b ab, is the fool-killer in the parts yu cum frum, duin his juty, ur is he ded? I thot so, by the jinglin Jehosephat." The old gentleman turned to me and asked in a confidential whisper, "Is not that person slightly deranged?" "Oh, no, not at all," [I replied,] "he is only troubled at times with violent attacks of durn'd fool."

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Amazing how people can twist religion to support what they wish to do or believe. Two such doctrines involve the biblical Adam and are called "Adamite" (and more importantly, each led do a more-interesting secular meaning of the term).

Since Adam was naked, some claimed that the proper way to worship was to return to that state by casting off one's clothes. (How enjoyable worship must be! It often involved – well let's delicately say "the activities you might expect of naked adults gathered together.") More perniciously, some claimed that the Lord had created other, inferior humans before Adam. The descendents of Adam ("Adamites") were therefore superior to the others' descendents ("pre-Adamites") and, not surprisingly, the former were identified with the white race. Other peoples were classed as pre-Adamite and therefore inferior. I know, it sounds unbelievable, but I quote a modern proponent of that view:

… the false doctrine that "all races are derived from Adam". That there was a pre-adamite creation of bipeds is made clear in Genesis 1:24-25 and what we must note is this difference between the two. The pre-adamite was made with substance or he was material, the first Adam was created in the image and likeness of God.

Putting it all together, adding the innocent meanings and illustrating only the latter:

adamite – 1. (religion): a. a sect whose members, purporting to return to Adam's pure condition, cast off their clothing as part of worship. b. a descendant of Adam – as opposed to a descendent of inferior peoples the Lord is supposed to have created before Adam (pre-Adamite). 2. (after 1.a. and b. above) a. a nudist or a naked person b. pre-Adamite (adj): of extreme antiquity

Nudity:
an Indian wench, perfumed with grease of bear and covered no more than an Adamite, flings herself upon him and bites him in the neck! "'God!" cried Ebenezer. The good man struggles, but the maid hath strength ...
– John Barth, The Sot-Weed Factor [I modestly refrain from continuing to its conclusion this tale of "the singular martyrdom of Father FitzMaurice," a missionary – that is, his seduction.]

But don't you worry none, I've nought to fear from the likes o' that over there. He's just a barmy old loon-Verney the Adamite he is, harmless but he do tend to tear yer clothes given half the chance.
– Robin Jarvis, The Alchemist's Cat

Antiquity:
Detached broken fossils of pre-adamite whales … have … at various intervals intervals, been found …
– Herman Melville, Moby Dick, ch. 104; more in ch.104-105

I am, in point of fact, a particularly haughty and exclusive person, of pre-Adamite ancestral descent. You will understand this when I tell you that I can trace my ancestry back to a protoplasmal primordial atomic globule. Consequently, my family pride is something inconceivable.
– Gilbert & Sullivan, The Mikado, as spoken by Pooh-Bah

There's an interesting twist in the last quote: Pooh Bah is using pre-adamite to denote superiority rather than inferiority.

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Methuselah – a very old man [but see below for extended senses]
[After biblical Methuselah, Genesis 5, who lived for 969 years.]

The General nodded … "They should have given him the division" he added grumpily. "MacArthur said he was too young. Apparently you've got to be a Methuselah to get a command out there. The magic age seems to be fifty-two."
– Anton Myrer, Once an Eagle

[F]or most people more learning goes on faster up to the age of eighteen or twenty than ever after, even if they live to be older than Methuselah. (That is why vocabulary increases so rapidly for the first twenty years of life and comparatively at a snail's pace thereafter.)
– Norman Lewis, Word Power Made Easy

Methuselah (by extension) – 1. any plant or animal alive but extremely old for its kind or circumstances 2. pertaining to extremely long life-span

We had a mouse that lived for several weeks with the vipers. While other mice dropped in the terrarium disappeared within two days, this little brown Methuselah … scampered about in plain sight of the snakes. We were amazed.
– Yann Martel, Life of Pi

Scientists have pinpointed the Methuselah gene - a stretch of DNA that confers healthy old age on men and women …
– Robin McKie, The Observer, Feb. 3, 2002

Note re wine:
A methuselah (not capitalized) is a wine bottle of eight times the standard size.
Many oversized wine bottles are named after biblical characters: you can get a Jeroboam, Rehoboam, Methuselah, Salmanazar, Balthazar, Nebuchadnezzar, Melchior, or a Solomon of wine. Caution: Some of these terms refer to one volume when used for wine generally, but to a different volume when used for champagne.

Solomonic – having great wisdom or discretion in making difficult decisions; esp. by crafting compromise or by creatively "thinking outside the box"

OED's definition ("suggestive of the wisdom of Solomon") is not particularly helpful, unless you're already familiar with Solomon and know the nature of his wisdom. So I've composed the above definition, based on review of usage. If you don't like it, your money will be cheerfully refunded.

Here's a fine case of thinking outside the box:

They told me the story of a recent attempt to stage Julius Caesar at the University of [Pakistan]. It seems that the authorities became very agitated when they heard that the script called for the assassination of a Head of State. … Extreme pressure was brought to bear on the University to scrap the production.
. . .Finally, the producer came up with a brilliant, a positively Solomonic solution. He invited a prominent British diplomat to play Caesar, dressed in (British) Imperial regalia. The Army relaxed; the play opened, and as the first night curtain fell, [one saw] a front row full of Generals, all applauding wildly to signify their enjoyment of this patriotic work depicting the overthrow of imperialism by the freedom movement of Rome.
– Salman Rushdie, Shame: A Novel

doubting Thomas – one who insists on "seeing the evidence" (Note: this is not a term for simple hardheaded skepticism. Rather, it implies that the demand for evidence is uncalled-for or extreme.)

[After the apostle Thomas, who said he would disbelieve Jesus' resurrection until he saw Jesus with his own eyes. (John 20:24-29)]

The IRA - Western Europe's deadliest terrorist group - yesterday declared that it had put its formidable armoury beyond use. … The Rev Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party found instant fault with the announcements … a highly significant event was shrouded in clouds of cynical mistrust … Mr Paisley will therefore, as expected, remain a doubting Thomas, his demand for photographs of the decommissioning having been rejected.
– David McKittrick, The Independent (UK), Sep. 27, 2005

Some interesting trivia regarding the Doubting Thomas story.

First, it appears only in John, not in any of the other gospels.

This is also the only place in the NT where it is specified that Jesus's nail holes are in his hands. Anatomists seem to be in agreement that the hands aren't mechanically strong enough and the wrists are more likely, and historians tend to be of the opinion -- based on other sources -- that arms were tied to the crosses.

Another interesting twist on this story is the individual Didymus Thomas. Both Didymus and Thomas mean twin. The earliest sources (Mark, Q, Paul) all state unambiguously that Jesus has brothers, and there is a very old Syriac tradition that Judas Thomas was Jesus's twin brother. Hence, the choice of Thomas to be the doubtful one may have been an answer to those who claimed that the Jesus's resurrection was merely his twin brother Judas impersonating him. Thomas is present at the subsequent appearance story in John as well, but plays no other part in any of the other gospels except to be mentioned as a disciple.

Another bit of trivia: St Judas Thomas Didymus is thought by some to be the apostle who evangelized India.

quote:

Another bit of trivia: St Judas Thomas Didymus is thought by some to be the apostle who evangelized India.

Unfortunately, Thomas preached complete celibacy, which met with little success. For the full story see the Acts of Thomas.