Shem (name), one of the three sons of Noah (), from whom descended the nations enumerated in , sq., and who was the progenitor of that great branch of the Noachic family (called from him Shemitic or Semitic) to which the Hebrews belong. The name of Shem is placed first wherever the sons of Noah are mentioned together; whence he would seem to have been the eldest brother. But against this conclusion is brought the text , which, according to the Authorized, and many other versions, has 'Shem the brother of Japheth the elder;' whence it has been conceived very generally that Japheth was really the eldest, and that Shem is put first by way of excellency, seeing that from him the holy line descended. But this conclusion is not built upon a critical knowledge of the Hebrew, which would show that 'the elder' must in this text be referred not to Japheth but to Shem, so that it should be read 'Shem… the elder brother of Japheth.'
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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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