Pe´tra was the capital of the Nabathaean Arabs in the land of Edom, and seems to have given name to the kingdom and region of Arabia Petrœa. As there is mention in the Old Testament of a stronghold which successively belonged to the Amorites (), the Edomites () and the Moabites (, comp. in Hebrew ), and bore in Hebrew the name of Selah, which has the same meaning as Petra in Greek, viz., 'a rock,' that circumstance has led to the conjecture that the Petra of the Nabatheans had been the Selah of Edom. But the consideration of that point in a work of this nature falls more naturally under the Bible head of Selah, to which article accordingly the reader is referred; and there likewise the question will be disposed of as to whether (on the supposition of Petra being the Selah of Scripture) its site is to be identified with that of the modern Kereh, or with the locality of the far famed Wady Musa [ARABIA; IDUMEA; NEBAIOTH].
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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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