Book of Esther, historical books of Scripture, called by the Jews Megillah Esther. In the Christian Church it has been also called Ahasuerus.
The Jews hold this book in veneration next to the books of Moses, and there appears to be no authentic foundation for the statement of Richard Baxter (Saint's Rest, part 4), that the book of Esther was treated so ignominiously by the Jews that they were in the habit of throwing it on the ground before reading it.
As the subject of this book has been treated of under the article Ahasuerus it will be sufficient to refer to that head; only we may here observe that the book of Esther has this peculiarity among the historical books, that although the author, a Persian Jew, records a remarkable preservation from destruction of that portion of his countrymen which remained in Persia after the exile, he does not refer their deliverance to the act of God, whose name is not even once mentioned. This has been explained by supposing that the author wished to avoid giving offence to the Persians, or that the whole was taken from the Persian annals, which are appealed to, .
The age and authorship of Esther is a question involved in much difficulty. Of the author nothing is known, nor have we any data on which to form a reasonable conjecture.
Some doubts have been thrown on the canonical authority of this book, but whatever hesitation may have been felt by some of the Christian fathers as to its authenticity, it does not appear that it was ever doubted by the Jews or by the Christian Church in its collective capacity.
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John Kitto was an English biblical scholar of Cornish descent.Born in Plymouth, John Kitto was a sickly child, son of a Cornish stonemason. The drunkenness of his father and the poverty of his family meant that much of his childhood was spent in the workhouse. He had no more than three years of erratic and interrupted education. At the age of twelve John Kitto fell on his head from a rooftop, and became totally and permanently deaf. As a young man he suffered further tragedies, disappointments and much loneliness. His height was 4 ft 8 in, and his accident left him with an impaired sense of balance. He found consolation in browsing at bookstalls and reading any books that came his way.
From these hardships he was rescued by friends who became aware of his mental abilities and encouraged him to write topical articles for local newspapers, arranging eventually for him to work as an assistant in a local library. Here he continued to educate himself.
One of his benefactors was the Exeter dentist Anthony Norris Groves, who in 1824 offered him employment as a dental assistant. Living with the Groves family, Kitto was profoundly influenced by the practical Christian faith of his employer. In 1829 he accompanied Groves on his pioneering mission to Baghdad and served as tutor to Groves's two sons. In 1833 Kitto returned to England via Constantinople, accompanied by another member of the Groves mission, Francis William Newman. Shortly afterwards he married, and in due course had several children.
A London publisher asked Kitto to write up his travel journals for a series of articles in the Penny Magazine, a publication read at that time by a million people in Britain, reprinted in America and translated into French, German and Dutch. Other writing projects followed as readers enquired about his experiences in the East amidst people living in circumstances closely resembling those of Bible times.
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