Ga´briel (the mighty one [or ] of God), the heavenly messenger who was sent to Daniel to explain the vision of the ram and the he-goat (Daniel 8), and to communicate the prediction of the Seventy Weeks (). Under the new dispensation he was employed to announce the birth of John the Baptist to his father Zechariah (), and that of the Messiah to the Virgin Mary (). Both by Jewish and Christian writers, Gabriel has been denominated an archangel. The Scriptures, however, affirm nothing positively respecting his rank, though the importance of the commissions on which he was employed, and his own words 'I am Gabriel, that stand in the presence of God' (), are rather in favor of the notion of his superior dignity. But the reserve of the Inspired Volume on such points strikingly distinguishes its angelology from that of the Jews and Muhammadans, and we may add, of the Fathers and some later Christian writers. In all the solemn glimpses of the other world which it gives, a great moral purpose is kept in view. Whatever is divulged tends to elevate and refine: nothing is said to gratify a prurient curiosity.
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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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