Who Made God?

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Leviticus 17:10 And whatsoever man there be of the house of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn among you, that eateth any manner of blood; I will even set my face against that soul that eateth blood, and will cut him off from among his people.

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17:11 For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.

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17:12 Therefore I said unto the children of Israel, No soul of you shall eat blood, neither shall any stranger that sojourneth among you eat blood.

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You said:

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These three verses go together in the original text and cover the complete thought under discussion in them.

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This was written to the children of Israel.
Verse 10 says any man (Israelite or sojourner) who eats any manner of blood will be cut off.

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Verse 11 says the life of the flesh is in the blood. It also says blood has been shed to make an atonement.

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Verse 12 says Therefore... no soul (living being) of you shall eat blood.

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What are these verses talking about? Eating blood.
What is said concerning eating blood? Man forbidden from eating blood.
Why are they forbidden from eating blood?
Because the life of the flesh is in the blood.
What is the results of eating blood? Cut off from the promise.

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Is the life of the flesh in the blood?

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Actually the word for animal "life" is nephesh which is the closest word to mean "soul" in Biblical Hebrew.It says the SOUL is in the blood which is used to make atonement for YOUR SOULS.The "your souls" is the same "nephesh" word but in the plural (plus the suffix for "your" attached.)Without the suffix, it is nephashoth for plural.It is about souls if anything.See Genesis 9.NIV

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3Everything that lives and moves about will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything.

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4But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it. 5And for your lifeblood I will surely demand an accounting. I will demand an accounting from every animal. And from each human being, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of another human being.

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6Whoever sheds human blood,

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by humans shall their blood be shed;

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for in the image of God

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has God made mankind.

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It is taking a vegetarian command and making an excuse for meat eating.Here is an accurate translation.

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17:11 For the SOUL of the (ANIMAL) flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your (HUMAN) souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.

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Jerome (who you got your Bible from) correctly said this:

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Just as divorce according to the Saviour's word was not permitted from the beginning, but on account of the hardness of our heart was a concession of Moses to the human race, so too the eating of flesh was unknown until the deluge. But after the deluge, like the quails given in the desert to the murmuring people, the poison of flesh-meat was offered to our teeth. At the beginning of the human race we neither ate flesh, nor gave bills of divorce, nor suffered circumcision for a sign. Thus we reached the deluge. But after the deluge, together with the giving of the law which no one could fulfil, flesh was given for food, and divorce was allowed to hard-hearted men, and the knife of circumcision was applied, as though the hand of God had fashioned us with something superfluous. But once Christ has come in the end of time, and Omega passed into Alpha and turned the end into the beginning, we are no longer allowed divorce, nor are we circumcised, nor do we eat flesh.

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Jerome, Against Jovinianus
(trans. W.H. Fremantle, G. Lewis and W.G. Martley), Book I, 18.

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Here is a quote that I have found multiple times on the web but seems a little corrupted.

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St Jerome Quote | The eating of meat was unknown up

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quoteaddicts.com/1064716

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... has again joined the end with the beginning, so that it is no longer allowed for us to eat animal meat."
- St Jerome. St Jerome Quote Wallpapers Jesus, Animal ...

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As for the bloodletting thing, it is a completely external issue to the Biblical text.The issue of humors and bleeding had nothing to do with people (possibly) thinking that the vital soul force was in the blood.The Biblical text is about nephesh and the verb (naphash) means he breathes or he breathed ("TO BREATH" in Lexicons)You want to get scientific?Is a "soul" proven?There is no real word for soul in Biblical Hebrew.The word means breathing creature.Is breath literally from blood?It has to do with killing.The Nephesh/blood issue is all about sacrifices and this humor issue is 100% off the path.So people attempted to purify a man medically.Blood transfusions can be done correctly without killing people.The humor issue was an attempt to cure a person without killing them.A side issue and blood being lost was known to kill.Honestly.Edited by LamarkNewAge, : No reason given.

(the quotations are important so we can see historical interpretations of the scripture)I'CANT sais this a while back:

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Around the 1620's AD William Harvey discovered the life of the flesh was in the blood and was circulated by the heart. He published his "de Motu Cordis" in 1628.

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I did some research a while back and found that William Harvey died around 1656 I think.The fundamentalist's favorite reformation devotional commentary seems to be Matthew Henry's, who was born in 1662. He wrote a full 3 quarters to 1 full century after this blood discovery.Here is what he said.(via the Bible Hub comment option on Genesis 9:4)

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9:4-7 The main reason of forbidding the eating of blood, doubtless was because the shedding of blood in sacrifices was to keep the worshippers in mind of the great atonement; yet it seems intended also to check cruelty, lest men, being used to shed and feed upon the blood of animals, should grow unfeeling to them, and be less shocked at the idea of shedding human blood. Man must not take away his own life. Our lives are God's, and we must only give them up when he pleases. If we in any way hasten our own death, we are accountable to God for it. When God requires the life of a man from him that took it away unjustly, the murderer cannot render that, and therefore must render his own instead. One time or other, in this world or in the next, God will discover murders, and punish those murders which are beyond man's power to punish. But there are those who are ministers of God to protect the innocent, by being a terror to evil-doers, and they must not bear the sword in vain, Ro 13:4. Wilful murder ought always to be punished with death. To this law there is a reason added. Such remains of God's image are still upon fallen man, that he who unjustly kills a man, defaces the image of God, and does dishonour to him

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I still don't see where this discovery was seen as some big confirmation in the commentaries.That was a Genesis 9:4 comment page.Here is Leviticus 17:11 page.Leviticus 17:11 Commentaries: 'For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood by reason of the life that makes atonement.'COSMOLOGICAL ISSUES.And what about this "stretching out the heavens" issue and some sort of creation of space similar to general relativity?Job 9:8 Commentaries: Who alone stretches out the heavens And tramples down the waves of the sea;Isaiah 42:5 Commentaries: Thus says God the LORD, Who created the heavens and stretched them out, Who spread out the earth and its offspring, Who gives breath to the people on it And spirit to those who walk in it,Isaiah 44:24 Commentaries: Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, and the one who formed you from the womb, "I, the LORD, am the maker of all things, Stretching out the heavens by Myself And spreading out the earth all alone,Isaiah 45:12 Commentaries: "It is I who made the earth, and created man upon it. I stretched out the heavens with My hands And I ordained all their host.Isaiah 51:13 Commentaries: That you have forgotten the LORD your Maker, Who stretched out the heavens And laid the foundations of the earth, That you fear continually all day long because of the fury of the oppressor, As he makes ready to destroy? But where is the fury of the oppressor?I think that I'CANT doesn't accept a "Cosmological Constant" (from a single initial point) but might be more in favor of a general relativity application toward a Halton Arp type of "multiple ongoing creation points" (as creationists like to interpret his work to have indicated) in endless spots in the universe.BUT.He thinks that the scripture states that space was (is?) being created by God, which would then be matching modern scientific observations.Where are the pre-Einstein commentaries to back his scriptural exegesis claim?Why shouldn't we look and ask?Edited by LamarkNewAge, : No reason given.

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whether GOD ... interacts with humanity in any meaningful or relational way.

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The ancient folks are no closer nor any farther than we are from addressing this today.

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I think that certain folks like Jerome (whose life spanned from around 340 to 420 or something) were using their time very wisely.He actually had to flee (from Rome and the Pope) to Palestine, according to some of what I read on the internet. After he was earlier commissioned, by the Pope, to write the Bible.He searched and translated ancient texts.I have a ton of respect for what he attempted to do.And I can use his considerable access to documents no longer existing (like the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew), among other things, to see what the Christian views were (overall) back then.JESUS FAMILY ISSUE.Just like I can see what the monumentally important chronicler Hegesippus said about the Bishops from the family of Jesus that ruled till after 100 A.D.Clopas - WikipediaSimeon of Jerusalem - WikipediaEusebius quoted Hegesippus:

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. The same author also describes the beginnings of the heresies which arose in his time, in the following words: "And after James the Just had suffered martyrdom, as the Lord had also on the same account, Symeon, the son of the Lord's uncle, Clopas, [1230] was appointed the next bishop. All proposed him as second bishop because he was a cousin of the Lord.

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"Therefore, [1231] they called the Church a virgin, for it was not yet corrupted by vain discourses.

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Hegesippus and the Events which He Mentions.

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Concerning the relatives of our saviour.

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There still survived of the kindred of the Lord the grandsons of Judas, who according to the flesh was called his brother. These were informed against, as belonging to the family of David, and Evocatus brought them before Domitian Caesar: for that emperor dreaded the advent of Christ, as Herod had done.

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So he asked them whether they were of the family of David; and they confessed they were. Next he asked them what property they had, or how much money they possessed. They both replied that they had only 9000 denaria between them, each of them owning half that sum; but even this they said they did not possess in cash, but as the estimated value of some land, consisting of thirty-nine plethra only, out of which they had to pay the dues, and that they supported themselves by their own labour. And then they began to hold out their hands, exhibiting, as proof of their manual labour, the roughness of their skin, and the corns raised on their hands by constant work.

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Being then asked concerning Christ and His kingdom, what was its nature, and when and where it was to appear, they returned answer that it was not of this world, nor of the earth, but belonging to the sphere of heaven and angels, and would make its appearance at the end of time, when He shall come in glory, and judge living and dead, and render to every one according to the course of his life.

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Thereupon Domitian passed no condemnation upon them, but treated them with contempt, as too mean for notice, and let them go free. At the same time he issued a command, and put a stop to the persecution against the Church.

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When they were released they became leaders of the churches, as was natural in the case of those who were at once martyrs and of the kindred of the Lord. And, after the establishment of peace to the Church, their lives were prolonged to the reign of Trojan.

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Concerning the martyrdom of Symeon the son of Clopas, bishop of Jerusalem.

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Some of these heretics, forsooth, laid an information against Symeon the son of Clopas, as being of the family of David, and a Christian. And on these charges he suffered martyrdom when he was 120 years old, in the reign of Trajan Caesar, when Atticus was consular legate in Syria. And it so happened, says the same writer, that, while inquiry was then being made for those belonging to the royal tribe of the Jews, the accusers themselves were convicted of belonging to it. With show of reason could it be said that Symeon was one of those who actually saw and heard the Lord, on the ground of his great age, and also because the Scripture of the Gospels makes mention of Mary the daughter of Clopas, who, as our narrative has shown already, was his father.

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The same historian mentions others also, of the family of one of the reputed brothers of the Saviour, named Judas, as having survived until this same reign, after the testimony they bore for the faith of Christ in the time of Domitian, as already recorded.

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He writes as follows: They came, then, and took the presidency of every church, as witnesses for Christ, and as being of the kindred of the Lord. And, after profound peace had been established in every church, they remained down to the reign of Trojan Caesar: that is, until the time when he who was sprung from an uncle of the Lord, the aforementioned Symeon son of Clopas, was informed against by the various heresies, and subjected to an accusation like the rest, and for the same cause, before the legate Atticus; and, while suffering outrage during many days, he bore testimony for Christ: so that all, including the legate himself, were astonished above measure that a man 120 years old should have been able to endure such torments. He was finally condemned to be crucified.

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... Up to that period the Church had remained like a virgin pure and uncorrupted: for, if there were any persons who were disposed to tamper with the wholesome rule of the preaching of salvation, they still lurked in some dark place of concealment or other. But, when the sacred band of apostles had in various ways closed their lives, and that generation of men to whom it had been vouchsafed to listen to the Godlike Wisdom with their own ears had passed away, then did the confederacy of godless error take its rise through the treachery of false teachers, who, seeing that none of the apostles any longer survived, at length attempted with bare and uplifted head to oppose the preaching of the truth by preaching "knowledge falsely so called."

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http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/hegesippus.html

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The Bishop James the Just was followed by SimonWikipedia

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Saint Simeon of Jerusalem, son of Clopas, was a Jewish Christian leader and according to most Christian traditions the second Bishop of Jerusalem (62 or 70—107).

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Life[edit]

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Eusebius of Caesarea gives the list of these bishops.[1] According to a universal tradition the first bishop of Jerusalem was Saint James the Just, the "brother of the Lord," who according to Eusebius said that he was appointed bishop by the Apostles Peter, St. James (whom Eusebius identifies with James, son of Zebedee), and John.[2]

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According to Eusebius, Saint Simeon of Jerusalem was selected as James' successor after the conquest of Jerusalem which took place immediately after the martyrdom of James (i.e. no earlier than 70 AD) which puts the account in agreement with that of Flavius Josephus who puts James' first arrest and subsequent release by Procurator Albinus in 63 AD:[3][4] (Many interpret Josephus to be saying that James was martyred at that time, but Josephus states that he was released[citation needed] and the modern footnotes show that his martyrdom took place some years afterwards, shortly before the destruction of Jerusalem.)

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After the martyrdom of James and the conquest of Jerusalem which immediately followed, it is said that those of the apostles and disciples of the Lord that were still living came together from all directions with those that were related to the Lord according to the flesh (for the majority of them also were still alive) to take counsel as to who was worthy to succeed James. They all with one consent pronounced Symeon, the son of Clopas, of whom the Gospel also makes mention; to be worthy of the episcopal throne of that parish. He was a cousin, as they say, of the Saviour. For Hegesippus records that Clopas was a brother of Joseph.[5]

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According to Hegesippus, Simeon prevailed against Thebutis, whom the church fathers deemed a Judaizing heresiarch,[6] and led most of the Christians to Pella before the outbreak of the Jewish War in 66 and the destruction of Herod's Temple in 70.

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According to Church historian Eusebius, Simeon was executed about the year 107 or 117 under the reign of emperor Trajan by the proconsul Tiberius Claudius Atticus Herodes in Jerusalem or the vicinity.[7] However,this must be a mistake by Eusebius because the Roman province of Judea the Roman administrator (Legate) of the day at the time of the crucifixion was a Quintus Pompeius Falco (between 105-107 AD) and Tiberius Claudius Atticus Herodes was there much earlier from 99-102 AD.

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Simeon is sometimes identified with Simon, the "brother of the Lord", who is mentioned in passing in the Bible (Matthew 13:55, Mark 6:3) (although Aramaic had no term for "cousin"[8]) and pointing to Hegesippus referring to him as the "second cousin" as bishop of Jerusalem. Other exegetes consider the brothers to be actual brothers and Hegesippus' wording as subsuming both James and Simeon under a more general term.[9]

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He has also been identified with the Apostle Simon the Zealot.[10][11]

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Why can't the Eusebius quotes of Hegesippus be seen as monumentally enlightening?He lived during the time of the Jesus family Bishops.James really was Bishop of Jerusalem.He really was related to Jesus (probably his blood brother)Acts 15:13 Commentaries: After they had stopped speaking, James answered, saying, "Brethren, listen to me.

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Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
13—21. James sums up the discussion, and pronounces the decision of the Church on this Controversy

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13. James i.e. the brother of the Lord, and bishop of Jerusalem, see above on Acts 12:17.

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Why can't folks like Hegesippus be considered a must read?He was almost RIGHT THERE (born just a bit later) when the Jesus family ruled the "church" or whatever.And he read from the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew. But he did in the 2nd century while Jerome did from the 4th to the 5th.I respect those who were there.

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Who made God? Christian theology says God has always existed, so no one made God.

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Then how did God come about?Some background details would be nice.(Without any details outlining the process that came just before what we know as "the beginning", the "always existed" line will ONLY mean that God existed a good ways before man and our local Universe)(scripture makes it very clear that "the beginning" is only relative to whatever - limited - reference point is being discussed)Edited by LamarkNewAge, : No reason given.Edited by LamarkNewAge, : No reason given.

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I would think that you would have an opinion on this question since you always like googling a wide variety of religious texts and commentaries regarding non-Western Christian origins and beliefs.

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Here is my 2 cent answer: (not from google, note)

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Some believe that God originated in the imagination of humans.

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Others believe that God has always existed and imagined/created us long before we were evolved enough to scratch our butt.

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Evidence shows that humans began to write about gods and deities as soon as they were able to write.

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Some believe though cannot objectively prove that God desired to communicate to us through the writings we ourselves made.

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Evidently, either God encourages us to philosophize and question His character ....
or
God was entirely made up by humans.

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But early humans tended to think that the "Universe" was all there was, I suppose.(Not that people understood the planets and sun correctly).The issue of multiple universes is very tough to wrap our minds around even today.The problem with the - now understood - multiple universe reality is that the very word "universe" means everything.But the issue is this:Creationists have no physical theory on how or where God came from. And saying "God is spiritual" doesn't solve the problem. You would need to apply physics to spiritual origins. It is all hypothetical. And a Spiritual Physics type of philosophical argument is a requirement for people with theological beliefs. One must know what to believe in for a "belief" to have long-term vitality.

Faith said:

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Dean John William Burgon went to great lengths to show the corruptions of the Greek texts as well as the bad translation of the "New Revised Edition" put out in 1881 as a supposed updating of the KJV which was really a wholesale retranslation based on bad texts and bad translation.

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But here are a few Luther quotes on Esther.

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I am so great an enemy to the second book of the Maccabees, and to Esther, that I wish they had not come to us at all, for they have too many heathen unnaturalities. The Jews much more esteemed the book of Esther than any of the prophets; though they were forbidden to read it before they had attained the age of thirty, by reason of the mystic matters it contains.

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http://www.patheos.com/...of-esther.html#CUPeqSZrG0fChmk6.99

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the Jewish canon. You are somewhat biting and derisive yourself about that canon, when you compare the Proverbs of Solomon and the Love-song (as with a sneering innuendo you term it) to the two books of Esdras and Judith, and the History of Susanna and of the Dragon, and the book of Esther (though they have this last in their canon; in my opinion, however, it is less worthy to be held canonical than any of these).

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Luther said Revelation was NOT Apostolic.Martin Luther made an effort at an accurate translation (and his Bible was based on the manuscripts that would late be used for the Kings James translation), but there was - to him - a MUCH DEEPER PROBLEM than simple translation issues.