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 the situation was less favorable than before, and learning and education far less flourishing, many private families among the Jews had closets and chests full of books.

Altogether it seems rather clear that the popular education and the condition of libraries in Palestine in New Testament times compares well, perhaps even closely, with Puritan times in England and New England, when almost every plain family had its Bible and hymn book or Bible and New England Primer—and not much else. At all events libraries were common to an extent unbelievable, before recent research brought out the general extensive prevalence of books and libraries in the world at that time.