Zeb´edee (Jehovah's gift), husband of Salome, and father of the apostles James and John (; ; ; ; ; ; ). He was the owner of a fishing boat on the Lake of Gennesaret, and, with his sons, followed the business of a fisherman. He was present, mending the nets with them, when Jesus called James and John to follow him (; ; ); and as he offered no obstacle to their obedience, but remained alone without murmuring in the vessel, it is supposed that he had been previously a disciple of John the Baptist, and, as such, knew Jesus to be the Messiah. At any rate, he must have known this from his sons, who were certainly disciples of the Baptist. It is very doubtful whether Zebedee and his sons were of that very abject condition of life which is usually ascribed to them. They seem to have been in good circumstances, and were certainly not poor. Zebedee was the owner of a 'ship,' or fishing smack, as we should call it—and, perhaps, of more than one; he had laborers under him (); his wife was one of those pious women whom the Lord allowed 'to minister unto him of their substance;' and the fact that Jesus recommended his mother to the care of John, implies that he had the means of providing for her; while a still further proof that Zebedee's family was not altogether mean, may be found, perhaps, in the fact, that John was personally known to the high-priest ().
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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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