The Houston controversy about an incident at Friendswood Junior High where the principal Robin Lowe allowed a special event to take place to teach students about Islam has taken a new turn. Ms. Lowe responded to an incident in her school when a Muslim student was dumped head first into a trash can by holding a forum in the gym to teach students about the rudimentaries of Islam. Enough parents went berserk that she was removed from her position and put into central administration. I wrote earlier about this incident and my views about religious illiteracy in America. The blog entry is HERE <<<
Well today the Houston Chronicle reported that Ms. Lowe has taken a new job as principal of Pershing Junior High in Houston, which just happens to be the Junior High that my son is zoned to once he finishes grade school. I couldn't be more thrilled to think that we in this area of Houston got so lucky to have this forward-thinking woman as the principal of our school.
At the same time I am appalled at the response of David Welch, the executive director of the Houston Area Pastor Council, who was the one who called for her ouster as principal of Friendswood in the first place. It is reported in the newspaper that he said, "While we are encouraged that she's no longer the principal at Friendswood Junior High, we hope that she has learned from this experience and will be cautious and follow school policies appropriately this time." To remove her from her job, he used the argument that she didn't notify parents before the event so that they could remove their children. Was this used as an excuse by a Christian constituency to control public education for what they understand to be their own benefit?
For the record, Ms. Lowe did not break any school policies. Texas State law does not require written parental permission or notification before potentially controversial lessons. I completely support what she did, and I hope that she learned form this just how important it is to educate our youth about other religions. Please keep it up!
An Op-Ed blog by April DeConick, featuring discussions of the Nag Hammadi collection, Tchacos Codex,
and other Christian apocrypha, but mostly just the things on my mind.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Friday, June 27, 2008
Apocryphote of the Day: 6-27-08
Be watchful over your life. Never let your lamps go out or your loins be ungirded, but keep yourselves always in readiness. For you can never be sure the hour when the Lord may be coming.
Didache 16.1 (ca. 90-100 CE)
Commentary: This old text is an early Christian handbook that contains traditions about as old as any we can recover from surviving Christian documents. The first Christians were very millenarian.
Didache 16.1 (ca. 90-100 CE)
Commentary: This old text is an early Christian handbook that contains traditions about as old as any we can recover from surviving Christian documents. The first Christians were very millenarian.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Finishing the Male-Female Apocryphote Series
On 6-3-08, I started a series of apocryphotes that were related to saying 22 in the Gospel of Thomas. I have been trying to post a new one each day (minus the weekends). I finished yesterday.
What have we learned? That versions of this saying were very popular, going back to our oldest extant source - the letters of Paul. It was well-known probably because it was part of the early baptismal liturgy in Antioch and probably also in Jerusalem. Most of the sources where we find versions of it preserved are from Syria, and even more, eastern Syria. Hermeneutically it was connected to Genesis 1-5, and rectifying the separation of the androgynous man into male and female beings. Either celibacy (Syrian encratites) or marriage (Valentinian Gnostics) were thought to restore, in practical terms, the primal androgynous man.
Hermeneutically this saying also became intertwined with bits of other Jesus sayings, particularly those in which he spoke of the coming together of opposites like the inside and the outside, the right and the left, and the above and the below. All of these bits meant to explain how the primal human could be restored. So we also see bits about a new man or a new creature being formed, eyes in place of eyes, hand in place of hand, and foot in place of foot. The image of little children amalgamates because the person is being rebirthed and is again a child in the Garden. These sayings, along with their early hermetic equivalents, become very important for the later Hermetic and Alchemical movements which were all about the birthing or transformation of materials into some perfected or divine substance.
How difficult it becomes to speak of intertextuality and literary dependence. The model I prefer is that of intertraditions, where these ideas and practices are a well-known part of the Christian landscape, and they erupt in the literature not because one person is copying from another person, but because our authors are part of this common landscape. The sayings of Jesus remain important jumping off points hermeneutically. But not any hermeneutic was permitted. The hermeneutic had to make sense to the already existing landscape, and what was already known to be true about that particular saying. Bits and pieces of other saying were intertwined from memory, as the person worked to explain and teach within this landscape.
What have we learned? That versions of this saying were very popular, going back to our oldest extant source - the letters of Paul. It was well-known probably because it was part of the early baptismal liturgy in Antioch and probably also in Jerusalem. Most of the sources where we find versions of it preserved are from Syria, and even more, eastern Syria. Hermeneutically it was connected to Genesis 1-5, and rectifying the separation of the androgynous man into male and female beings. Either celibacy (Syrian encratites) or marriage (Valentinian Gnostics) were thought to restore, in practical terms, the primal androgynous man.
Hermeneutically this saying also became intertwined with bits of other Jesus sayings, particularly those in which he spoke of the coming together of opposites like the inside and the outside, the right and the left, and the above and the below. All of these bits meant to explain how the primal human could be restored. So we also see bits about a new man or a new creature being formed, eyes in place of eyes, hand in place of hand, and foot in place of foot. The image of little children amalgamates because the person is being rebirthed and is again a child in the Garden. These sayings, along with their early hermetic equivalents, become very important for the later Hermetic and Alchemical movements which were all about the birthing or transformation of materials into some perfected or divine substance.
How difficult it becomes to speak of intertextuality and literary dependence. The model I prefer is that of intertraditions, where these ideas and practices are a well-known part of the Christian landscape, and they erupt in the literature not because one person is copying from another person, but because our authors are part of this common landscape. The sayings of Jesus remain important jumping off points hermeneutically. But not any hermeneutic was permitted. The hermeneutic had to make sense to the already existing landscape, and what was already known to be true about that particular saying. Bits and pieces of other saying were intertwined from memory, as the person worked to explain and teach within this landscape.
Apocryphote of the Day: 6-26-08
Jesus said, "You are the lamp that illuminates the world."
Gospel of the Savior 97.20-22 (mid-second century gospel, probably Syrian provenance)
Gospel of the Savior 97.20-22 (mid-second century gospel, probably Syrian provenance)
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Apocryphote of the Day: 6-24-08

The Book of Steps (Liber Graduum) 792.17-22, 253.23-25 (fourth century Syrian handbook)
Woodcut in M. Maier, Atalanta Fugiens, 1617, Emblem 1: Pregnant man going through alchemical transformation.
Labels:
Alchemy,
Apocryphote of the Day,
Liber Graduum
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Apocryphote of the Day: 6-24-08

Gospel of Philip 68.23-26, 70.13-20
Film production for Erotic Mysticism Documentary

Zeke, who is a Plotinian graduate student at University of Chicago, also has a personal webpage HERE <<<
Gnosis and sacred marriage is also the subject of one of the chapters I am planning to write for my Sex and the Serpent in Ancient Christianity: Why the Sexual Conflicts of the Early Church Still Matter. By the way, I have now finished two chapters of this book (Chapter 1: Where did the Mother God Go?; Chapter 2: Why was the Spirit Neutered?). I am going to start writing the third chapter this week: Chapter 3: Is Sex a Sin? - all about Jesus and Paul on this subject).
Monday, June 23, 2008
Apocryphote of the Day: 6-23-08
"The Kingdom of Heaven, look, it is inside of us. Look, it is outside of us. If we believe in it, we shall live in it forever."
Manichaean Psalm Book 160.20-21
Manichaean Psalm Book 160.20-21
Mandaeans in Detroit

What a great solution. The next convention will be held in Detroit, Michigan (where I was born) in the first week of July. For more information, go to the Mandaean Union website HERE <<<
Friday, June 20, 2008
Is there evidence for an Aramaic substratum for the Gospel of Thomas
As many of you know who have read my two books on the Gospel of Thomas (Recovering, and The Original Gospel of Thomas in Translation), I have spoken about the fact that over many years several scholars have published references to Semitisms in the Gospel of Thomas. I went about collecting them in my commentary and in the end came up with quite a list. In some cases the Semitisms are explained as references to Syriac, in other cases as references to Aramaic, and in other cases as either. So scholars have been reluctant to accept an Aramaic substratum because linguistics alone is inconclusive, because many times the Semitisms can be explained with reference to either Aramaic or Syriac since Syriac and Aramaic are related.
Is there any way to figure this out? This is the question that I faced as I looked at all the evidence I gathered in my commentary. I had the thought to lay out the Semitisms and compare them with the accretions and the Kernel sayings. So I followed through, not really expecting anything. What I found surprised me. With the exception of two, the sayings in which scholars had identified Aramaisms as possible were all located in the Kernel sayings, including those sayings that may point to a pre-synoptic Aramaic substratum.
Now some people might find this to be coincidence, but I found it compelling, especially when paired with the fact that the content of the Kernel sayings points to a Jerusalem origin. So I concluded based on the big picture that a plausible scenario was that the Kernel was from Jerusalem, written in Aramaic. It was brought to Edessa, Syria, where it moved into Syriac as the Syriac-speaking Christians used it, reperformed it, and added to it. I don't doubt for a minute that in this compositional process sayings in the Gospel of Thomas took on some of the form and vocabulary of Syriac versions of those sayings from other circulating gospel literature. In other words, in the "real" environment of antiquity where orality and memory dominant, what might have begun as an independent version of a saying may not end up that way sixty years later. In fact, we must expect the sayings to take on the character of other circulating materials.
This is the argument that I set forth in both my books.
Unfortunately, this argument seems to have been lost in Nicholas Perrin's recent paper (it is in the poorly edited volume on Thomas that I mentioned in my previous post which also includes my mysticism paper) in which Perrin criticizes me for suggesting a possible Aramaic substratum when Syriac can explain some of these sayings as well and the linguistic evidence is inconclusive. Since he is trying to defend an argument for Thomas being a Diatessaron-dependent gospel, he concludes that the evidence although inconclusive linguistically (the Aramaisms could still be possible he says) points to Syriac.
But I never made the argument that Thomas has an Aramaic substratum because there are possible Aramaisms in Thomas. Professor Quispel and Guillamont were criticized for this back in the 60s. My analysis included much more than linguistic evidence, trying to get us out of this deadlock by looking at the document from a different perspective. For some reason it seems that scholars who try to get out of the box are constantly being shoved back into the box and all the old arguments that they are trying to transcend. This is frustrating to say the least.
My argument was and remains that the vast majority of possible Aramaisms lie in the Kernel sayings, and this suggests to me that it is quite likely from Palestine. This argument is part of a bigger analysis of the Kernel whose content in terms of eschatology and christology also points us to an early form of Jerusalem Christianity.
There are many reasons why Diatessaron-dependence has not been convincing. I am not going to rehearse them all here. The biggest hurdle is our physical manuscript evidence. I am not going to even begin to sort out here the problems of reconstructing the Diatessaron. It is worse than Q. Scholars can't even agree if the original language was Syriac or Greek.
But I can speak briefly to the Greek manuscript evidence for the Gospel of Thomas. P. Oxy. 1 has been determined on paleographic analysis to a date no later than 200 CE. Let's say that this was the autograph, the original manuscript written of Thomas, then that means that it is written as almost as a contemporary to the composition of the Diatessaron (150-170 CE). But remember this copy is in Greek and it is not the original. Perrin says the gospel was composed in Syriac. So this pushes Thomas' composition back even a bit earlier, unless one were to argue that a translation into Greek was almost immediately done in Egypt which is highly unlikely since it takes some time for gospels to become celebrities enough to merit copy and translation and distribution.
Furthermore, P. Oxy. 1's composition was dated by Grenfell and Hunt to no later than 140 CE because the internal evidence for such a dating is compelling. I know that Perrin does not like this argument having said in his first book that most scholars haven't bothered to probe this issue. This is a false statement. Grenfell and Hunt's dating has been generally accepted by scholars because it is compelling based on comparison with other early Christian literature which puts the form and content of this text in the early second century.
Is there any way to figure this out? This is the question that I faced as I looked at all the evidence I gathered in my commentary. I had the thought to lay out the Semitisms and compare them with the accretions and the Kernel sayings. So I followed through, not really expecting anything. What I found surprised me. With the exception of two, the sayings in which scholars had identified Aramaisms as possible were all located in the Kernel sayings, including those sayings that may point to a pre-synoptic Aramaic substratum.
Now some people might find this to be coincidence, but I found it compelling, especially when paired with the fact that the content of the Kernel sayings points to a Jerusalem origin. So I concluded based on the big picture that a plausible scenario was that the Kernel was from Jerusalem, written in Aramaic. It was brought to Edessa, Syria, where it moved into Syriac as the Syriac-speaking Christians used it, reperformed it, and added to it. I don't doubt for a minute that in this compositional process sayings in the Gospel of Thomas took on some of the form and vocabulary of Syriac versions of those sayings from other circulating gospel literature. In other words, in the "real" environment of antiquity where orality and memory dominant, what might have begun as an independent version of a saying may not end up that way sixty years later. In fact, we must expect the sayings to take on the character of other circulating materials.
This is the argument that I set forth in both my books.
Unfortunately, this argument seems to have been lost in Nicholas Perrin's recent paper (it is in the poorly edited volume on Thomas that I mentioned in my previous post which also includes my mysticism paper) in which Perrin criticizes me for suggesting a possible Aramaic substratum when Syriac can explain some of these sayings as well and the linguistic evidence is inconclusive. Since he is trying to defend an argument for Thomas being a Diatessaron-dependent gospel, he concludes that the evidence although inconclusive linguistically (the Aramaisms could still be possible he says) points to Syriac.
But I never made the argument that Thomas has an Aramaic substratum because there are possible Aramaisms in Thomas. Professor Quispel and Guillamont were criticized for this back in the 60s. My analysis included much more than linguistic evidence, trying to get us out of this deadlock by looking at the document from a different perspective. For some reason it seems that scholars who try to get out of the box are constantly being shoved back into the box and all the old arguments that they are trying to transcend. This is frustrating to say the least.
My argument was and remains that the vast majority of possible Aramaisms lie in the Kernel sayings, and this suggests to me that it is quite likely from Palestine. This argument is part of a bigger analysis of the Kernel whose content in terms of eschatology and christology also points us to an early form of Jerusalem Christianity.
There are many reasons why Diatessaron-dependence has not been convincing. I am not going to rehearse them all here. The biggest hurdle is our physical manuscript evidence. I am not going to even begin to sort out here the problems of reconstructing the Diatessaron. It is worse than Q. Scholars can't even agree if the original language was Syriac or Greek.
But I can speak briefly to the Greek manuscript evidence for the Gospel of Thomas. P. Oxy. 1 has been determined on paleographic analysis to a date no later than 200 CE. Let's say that this was the autograph, the original manuscript written of Thomas, then that means that it is written as almost as a contemporary to the composition of the Diatessaron (150-170 CE). But remember this copy is in Greek and it is not the original. Perrin says the gospel was composed in Syriac. So this pushes Thomas' composition back even a bit earlier, unless one were to argue that a translation into Greek was almost immediately done in Egypt which is highly unlikely since it takes some time for gospels to become celebrities enough to merit copy and translation and distribution.
Furthermore, P. Oxy. 1's composition was dated by Grenfell and Hunt to no later than 140 CE because the internal evidence for such a dating is compelling. I know that Perrin does not like this argument having said in his first book that most scholars haven't bothered to probe this issue. This is a false statement. Grenfell and Hunt's dating has been generally accepted by scholars because it is compelling based on comparison with other early Christian literature which puts the form and content of this text in the early second century.
Apocryphote of the Day: 6-20-08
Thomas says: "The inside I have made outside and the outside (inside), and all your fullness has been fulfilled in me. I have not turned back to the things behind, but have gone forward to the things before, so that I might not become a reproach."
Acts of Thomas 147 (Greek recension)
Thomas says: "The internal I have made external, and the external internal. Let your will be fulfilled in me. I have not turned back, and I have not stretched forward. Let me not be a wonder and a sign."
Acts of Thomas 147 (Syriac recension)
Commentary: The Greek recension relies on an older manuscript than the Syriac translation. Notice how the old Jesus saying has taken on new meanings in both these performances of it.
Acts of Thomas 147 (Greek recension)
Thomas says: "The internal I have made external, and the external internal. Let your will be fulfilled in me. I have not turned back, and I have not stretched forward. Let me not be a wonder and a sign."
Acts of Thomas 147 (Syriac recension)
Commentary: The Greek recension relies on an older manuscript than the Syriac translation. Notice how the old Jesus saying has taken on new meanings in both these performances of it.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Apocryphote of the Day: 6-19-08
Concerning these things, the Lord said in a mystery, "Unless you make the things on the right as those on the left and the things on the left as those on the right and the things above as those below and the things behind as those before, you will not recognize the kingdom."
Acts of Peter 38
Commentary: more bits and pieces of various sayings of Jesus threaded together in a way that signals oral transmission. Compare this to saying 22 in the Gospel of Thomas.
Acts of Peter 38
Commentary: more bits and pieces of various sayings of Jesus threaded together in a way that signals oral transmission. Compare this to saying 22 in the Gospel of Thomas.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Book Note: Das Thomas-Evangelium: Entstehung, Rezeption, Theologie (ed. Frey, Popkes, and Schröter)
This morning a surprise book came in the mail to me. A couple of years ago, I participated in a conference on the Gospel of Thomas in Eisenach, Germany. I remember turning in my paper to the conference organizers, but never received proofs for any volume nor information to expect its publication.
Well this morning the mystery is solved. Here is the conference volume, and here is my paper in it. As I read it over I am disappointed with the amount of printing errors including the loss of some indentations at the beginning of a few paragraphs. Apparently the editors weren't able to catch them, and I certainly didn't because I never had any proofs to make corrections and had no idea it was being published! This has never happened to me before, and I find it disconcerting. It is terribly upsetting when an author's work is published without allowances for the author to read and correct the typeset version which always contains mistakes due to the transfer process from the author's files to the press's files. I'm just grateful that this particular piece does not include extensive Coptic or Greek!
The book details: Jörg Frey, Enno Edzard Popkes, and Jens Schröter (eds.), Das Thomasevangelium: Entstehung, Rezeption, Theologie (BZNW 157; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2008).
Anyway, it is an interesting mixture of papers from both authors who gave papers at the conference and authors who didn't. Most are very standard form- and redaction-critical papers mainly written by the German contributors. But then there are some papers that move forward the discussion methodologically.
My paper is called "Mysticism and the Gospel of Thomas."
UPDATE 6-19-08: Well I have received a response from Jens who says that files were e-mailed to the authors last year. When I didn't turn in any corrections, he assumed that I didn't have any. It has always been my experience as a book editor (and I have edited many) that if I don't hear back from an author with corrections, something is wrong. Either the author didn't receive the proof, or has been on vacation, or has been ill. I am extremely upset about this because it makes me look careless, when in fact I never received a proof to correct nor any correspondence from the editors. We should never assume that authors receive things we sent electronically, especially since university systems have tough SPAM filters, and servers go down.

The book details: Jörg Frey, Enno Edzard Popkes, and Jens Schröter (eds.), Das Thomasevangelium: Entstehung, Rezeption, Theologie (BZNW 157; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2008).
Anyway, it is an interesting mixture of papers from both authors who gave papers at the conference and authors who didn't. Most are very standard form- and redaction-critical papers mainly written by the German contributors. But then there are some papers that move forward the discussion methodologically.
My paper is called "Mysticism and the Gospel of Thomas."
UPDATE 6-19-08: Well I have received a response from Jens who says that files were e-mailed to the authors last year. When I didn't turn in any corrections, he assumed that I didn't have any. It has always been my experience as a book editor (and I have edited many) that if I don't hear back from an author with corrections, something is wrong. Either the author didn't receive the proof, or has been on vacation, or has been ill. I am extremely upset about this because it makes me look careless, when in fact I never received a proof to correct nor any correspondence from the editors. We should never assume that authors receive things we sent electronically, especially since university systems have tough SPAM filters, and servers go down.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Apocryphote of the Day: 6-17-08
"Unless you are converted and become as little children, you will not be as you were before you sinned."
Liber Graduum or The Book of Steps 341.21-24 (fourth century, Syrian handbook to spiritual life)
Liber Graduum or The Book of Steps 341.21-24 (fourth century, Syrian handbook to spiritual life)
Monday, June 16, 2008
Judas Note
I have been getting a few e-mails already from my readers who have now purchased the new revised version of the National Geographic Society's The Gospel of Judas. So I thought it might quicker to address their issues in a short post on the blog.
They are telling me how disappointed they are that I did not contribute a chapter to NGS's revised version of The Gospel of Judas, or that the team editors did not interact more with The Thirteenth Apostle.
My response is that although The Thirteenth Apostle is marginalized (I didn't expect otherwise), I am happy that NGS at least included Gesine Schenke Robinson's chapter which presents the revisionist stance. Gesine is another scholar, along with John Turner, Louis Painchaud, Birger Pearson, Einar Thomassen, H.G.-Bethge, and Johannes Brankaer who have all already published in support of the demon Judas. Their publications have been in scholarly venues rather than in general audience books like mine. It should be recognized that all of these scholars came to this conclusion INDEPENDENT of other scholars.
If anyone knows of other scholars who have published on the demon Judas in the Gospel of Judas, please send along that information. I may have missed someone!
At any rate, if you are going to buy their publication, make sure that you purchase the second edition of The Gospel of Judas published by NGS. The covers look almost identical except for a small blue "Second Edition" below the title.
They are telling me how disappointed they are that I did not contribute a chapter to NGS's revised version of The Gospel of Judas, or that the team editors did not interact more with The Thirteenth Apostle.
My response is that although The Thirteenth Apostle is marginalized (I didn't expect otherwise), I am happy that NGS at least included Gesine Schenke Robinson's chapter which presents the revisionist stance. Gesine is another scholar, along with John Turner, Louis Painchaud, Birger Pearson, Einar Thomassen, H.G.-Bethge, and Johannes Brankaer who have all already published in support of the demon Judas. Their publications have been in scholarly venues rather than in general audience books like mine. It should be recognized that all of these scholars came to this conclusion INDEPENDENT of other scholars.
If anyone knows of other scholars who have published on the demon Judas in the Gospel of Judas, please send along that information. I may have missed someone!
At any rate, if you are going to buy their publication, make sure that you purchase the second edition of The Gospel of Judas published by NGS. The covers look almost identical except for a small blue "Second Edition" below the title.
Mary Platt on Gospel of Judas
Over the weekend Jim West posted his response to Mary Platt's comments about the Gospel of Judas. Mary Platt is the communications director at Marvin Meyer's college and this appears to be Chapman's response to Tim Bartlett's article in the Chronicle for Higher Education. Jim is correct to raise the questions and issues that he does. I would have raised similar questions, but Jim beat me to it.
UPDATE: A correction - Mary Platt was not responding to Tom Bartlett's article, but to another blogger who made a post HERE<<<
UPDATE: A correction - Mary Platt was not responding to Tom Bartlett's article, but to another blogger who made a post HERE<<<
Apocryphote of the Day: 6-16-08
"In that place there is 'neither male nor female, slave nor free' for all are being transformed into a divine nature, being made noble and gods and children of God."
Macarius, Homily 34.2 (Syrian church father, fourth century)
Macarius, Homily 34.2 (Syrian church father, fourth century)
Friday, June 13, 2008
Apocryphote of the Day: 6-13-08
"When the Apostle says, 'Put off the old man', he refers to the entire man, having new eyes in place of the old, ears replacing ears, hands for hands, feet for feet."
Macarius of Syria, Homily 2.2 (fourth century Syrian father)
Commentary: More variations on various parts of Jesus sayings such as recorded in Gospel of Thomas 22.
Macarius of Syria, Homily 2.2 (fourth century Syrian father)
Commentary: More variations on various parts of Jesus sayings such as recorded in Gospel of Thomas 22.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
A nice blog review of The Thirteenth Apostle
Does anyone know who authors the blog "Pokey Finger of God"? S/he has put up a very sensitive review of The Thirteenth Apostle, and I want to extend my thanks. The author of this review really got at what I was trying to accomplish, which was making the Gospel of Judas sensible as part of the bigger picture of early Christianity. Here's the last paragraph of the review and the LINK <<< to the rest.
I didn’t really get anything out of the original translation of GosJud. I had really low expectations for this book, expecting another dry recitation of ancient prose. Boy, was I surprised! Not only is this an interesting book, it’s got a lot of really clear analysis of some fairly complex material. Just for its coverage of the early Church, this book is a keeper.
Apocryphote of the Day: 6-12-08
If the woman had not separated from the man, she would not die with the man. His separation became the beginning of death. There Christ came to correct the separation which was from the beginning and to unite the two again and to give life to those who died in the separation and to unite them.
Gospel of Philip 70.10-17
Gospel of Philip 70.10-17
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