Teko´a, a city south of Bethlehem, on the borders of the desert to which it gave name, and noted as the residence of 'the wise woman' who interceded for Absalom; as one of the towns fortified by Rehoboam; and as the birthplace of the prophet Amos (;;;; ). The site has long been known; it lies six miles south of Bethlehem, on an elevated hill, not steep, but broad at the top, and covered with ruins to the extent of four or five acres. The site commands extensive prospects, and towards the east is bounded only by the level mountains of Moab. Before and during the Crusades Tekoa was well inhabited by Christians; but in A.D. 1138 it was sacked by a party of Turks from beyond the Jordan, and nothing further is known of it till the seventeenth century, when it lay desolate, as it has ever since done.
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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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