It is mentioned by Volney that in Syria, Egypt, and Turkey, when any considerable payments are to be made, an agent of exchange is sent for, who counts paras by thousands, rejects pieces of false money, and weighs all the sequins either separately or together. It has hence been suggested that the 'current money with the merchant,' mentioned in Scripture (), might have been such as was approved of by competent judges whose business it was to detect fraudulent money if offered in payment. It appears that there were bankers or money-changers in Judea, who made a trade of receiving money in deposit and paying interest for it (). Some of them had even established themselves within the precincts of the temple at Jerusalem (), where they were in the practice of exchanging one species of money for another. Persons who came from a distance to worship at Jerusalem would naturally bring with them the money current in their respective districts, and it might therefore be a matter of convenience for them to get this money exchanged at the door of the temple for that which was current in Jerusalem, and upon their departure to receive again that species of money which circulated in the districts to which they were journeying. These money-changers would, of course, charge a commission upon all their transactions, but from the observation of our Savior, when he overthrew the tables of those in the temple, it may be inferred that they were not distinguished for honesty and fair dealing: 'It is written, my house shall be called the house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves' ().
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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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