Whale occurs in several places of the Old Testament, and once in the New Testament. In the passages where scales and feet are mentioned as belonging to the animals so designated, commentators have shown that the crocodile is intended, which then is synonymous with the leviathan; and they have endeavored also to demonstrate, where they draw the dugs to suckle their young, that seals are meant, although cetacea nourish theirs in a similar manner. It may be doubted whether, in most of the cases, the poetical diction points absolutely to any specific animal, particularly as there is more force and grandeur in a generalized and collective image of the huge monsters of the deep, not inappropriately so called, than in the restriction to anyone species, since all are in made collectively subservient to the supremacy of man. But criticism is still more inappropriate when, not contented with pointing to some assumed species, it attempts to rationalize miraculous events by such arguments; as in the case of Jonah, where the fact of whales having a small gullet, and not being found in the Mediterranean, is adduced to prove that the huge fish was not a cetacean, but a shark! It may be observed, besides, of cetaceous animals, that though less frequent in the Mediterranean than in the ocean, they are far from being unknown there.
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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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