Cor´ban, a Hebrew word employed in the Hellenistic Greek, to designate an oblation of any kind to God. It occurs only once in the New Testament (). There is some difficulty in the exact meaning of this passage and the corresponding one, . Many interpreters, at the head of whom stands Beza, suppose that a gift of the property of the son had actually been made to the service of God. The sense is then, 'Whatever of mine might benefit thee is corban, is already dedicated to God, and I have therefore no power over it.' Others, more correctly as we think, translate the sentence, 'Be it corban (that is, devoted) whatever of mine shall profit thee.' Lightfoot notices a formula of frequent occurrence in the Talmud which seems to be exactly that quoted by our Lord, '[Be it] corban, [as to] which I may be profitable to thee.' He, as well as Grotius, shows that this and similar formula were not used to signify that the thing was actually devoted, but was simply intended to prohibit the use of it from the party to whom it was thus made corban, as though it were said, If I give you anything or do anything for you, may it be as though I gave you that which is devoted to God, and may I be accounted perjured and sacrilegious. This view of the passage certainly gives much greater force to the charge made by our Lord that the command 'Whoso curseth father or mother let him die the death' was nullified by the tradition. It would, indeed, seem surprising that such a vow as this (closely analogous to the modern profanity of imprecating curses on one's self if certain conditions be not fulfilled) should be considered to involve a religious obligation from which the party could not be freed even if afterwards he repented of his rashness and sin. It appears, however, from Rabbinical authority that anything thus devoted was irreclaimable, and that even the hasty utterance of a word implying a vow was equivalent to a vow formally made. This, indeed, seems to be the force of the expression used in Mark, 'ye suffer him no more to do aught for his father or his mother.' A more striking instance of the subversion of a command of God by the tradition of men can hardly be conceived.
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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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