Origins in Sumerian
Mythology
"According to the biblical
narrative (Genesis 5:21-24), Enoch lived only 365 years (far less
than the other patriarchs in the period before the Flood). Enoch
'walked with God; then he was no more for God took him'."
- Milik, Jazef. T., ed.
The Books of Enoch: Aramaic Fragments of Qumran Cave 4
"The Enoch literature seems to offer an alternative to the form of
Judaism that centers upon the Mosaic covenantal law. It appeals to a
myth of great evil and punishment in ancient times and calls on
people to be righteous because another judgment is coming. That
righteousness is apparently defined in Enoch's writings, not in the
Mosaic law. In other words, the appeal here is to a much earlier
time in history, before the division of nations. Was Enoch chosen to
make a wider appeal than Moses who lived after the nation of Israel
had begun? There is ample reason for believing that the biblical and
pseudepigraphic Enoch is a reflection of Mesopotamian traditions
about the seventh antediluvian king Enmeduranki of Sippar, a king
who was associated with the sun god and with divination. Enoch, the
seventh pre-flood patriarch in the Bible, taught a solar calendar
and received revelations about the future through mantic means such
as symbolic dreams."
- James C. Vanderkam
"According to Sumerian chronicles of the earlier times, it was at
Eridu's temple that Enki, as guardian of the secrets of all
scientific knowledge, kept the ME's - tabletlike objects on which
the scientific data were inscribed. One of the Sumerian texts
details how the goddess Inanna (later known as Ishtar), wishing to
give status to her 'cult center' Uruk (the biblical Erech), tricked
Enki into giving her some of those divine formulas. Adapa, we find,
was also nicknamed NUN.ME, meaning "He who can decipher the ME's'.
Even unto millennia later, in Assyrian times, the saying 'Wise as
Adapa' meant that someone was exceedingly wise and
knowledgeable....The 'wide knowledge' imparted by Enki to Adapa
included writing, medicine, and - according to the astronomical
series of tablets UD.SAR.ANUM.ENLILLA ('The Great Days of Amu and
Enlil') - knowledge of astronomy and astrology."
"...It is almost certain that the biblical 'Enoch' was the equivalent
of the Sumerian first priest, EN.ME.DUR.AN.KI ('High Priest of the
ME's of the Bond Heaven-Earth'), the man from the city Sippar taken
heavenward to be taught the secrets of Heaven and Earth, of
divination, and of the calendar. It was with him that the
generations of astronomer-priests, of Keepers of the Secrets,
began."
-
Zecharia Sitchin,
When Time Began
"The learned savant
who guards the secrets of the gods
will bind his favored son with an oath
before Shamash and Adad...
and will instruct him in the secrets of the gods."
"Thus was the line of priests created,
those who are allowed to approach Shamash and Adad."
- Sumerian tablet (W.
G. Lambert, Enmeduranki and Related Material)
"The legend [of Enoch] begins...with the Sumerian King List. This is a
list of rulers before the Flood, and is preserved in several forms,
including Berossus. Here one of the kings, often given as the
seventh (as Enoch is in his list), is called Enmeduranki or
Enmeduranna. He is generally associated with the city of Sippar,
which was the home of the cult of the sun god Shamash. Moreover, in
other texts this Enmeduranki was the first to be shown, by Adad and
Shamash, three techniques of divination: pouring oil on water,
inspecting a liver, and the use of a cedar (rod), whose function is
still unclear. These were to be transmitted from generation to
generation, and in fact became the property of the guild of baru,
the major group of diviners in Babylon.
"These details show how the biblical portrait of Enoch may have been
compiled from Enmeduranki: each is seventh in the antediluvian list;
the biblical 365 preserves the affinity to the sun, rather than the
sun god; walking with God (or perhaps, 'angels'?) suggests the
intimacy between god(s) and man. The final connection links not with
Enmeduranki, but with a fish-man (apkallu), with which each of the
first seven kings associated and from whom they learnt all kinds of
knowledge. Enmeduranki's apkallu, called Utu'abzu, is mentioned in
another cuneiform text, where he is said to have ascended to heaven.
This last link remains provisional, but at all events, the writer of
Genesis 5:21-24 appears to either have created Enoch as a
counterpart of Enmeduranki or, equally probably, to have alluded to
an already existing Jewish tradition about Enoch, already modeled on
the earlier figure."
- John Rogerson and Philip
Davies, The Old Testament World
"One cannot rule out the possibility that, as Enmduranki and Enoch,
Adapa too was the seventh in a line of sages, the Sages of Eridu,
and thus another version of the Sumerian memory echoed in the
biblical Enoch record. According to this tale, seven Wise Men were
trained in Eridu, Enki's city; their epithets and particular
knowledge varied from version to version. Rykle Borger, examining
this tale in light of the Enoch traditions ('Die Beschworungsserie
Bit Meshri und die Himmelfahrt Henochs' in the Journal of Near
Eastern Studies, vol. 33), was especially fascinated by the
inscription on the third tablet of the series of Assyrian Oath
Incantations. In it the name of each sage is given and his main call
on fame is explained; it says thus of the seventh: 'Uta-abzu, he who
to heaven ascended'. Citing a second such text, R. Borger concluded
that this seventh sage, whose name combined that of Utu/Shamash with
the Lower World (Abzu) domain of Enki, was the Assyrian 'Enoch'.
"According to the Assyrian references to the wisdom of Adapa, he
composed a book of sciences titled U.SAR d ANUM d ENLILA - 'Writings
regarding Time; from divine Anu and divine Enlil'. Adapa, thus, is
credited with writing Mankind's first book of astronomy and the
calendar."
-
Zecharia Sitchin,
When Time Began
"Henceforth, the seventh king shall be known by his Semitic name.
'Enoch' (meaning 'initiated' or 'dedicated') may have abdicated his
throne. He took his son (the biblical Methuselah) on a journey to
the west. They settled at Moriah, where Enoch built an underground
temple, having been inspired in a dream. Then he engraved cuneiform
characters on two triangles made of solid gold. The first delta was
concealed at Moriah. Methuselah was entrusted with the second. He
took the object back to Sippar. Enoch remained at Moriah, to become
the old man on the mountain. He lived 365 years, according to
Genesis, and then he died. Or did he vanish into thin air?"
-
enoch@execulink.com,
"Enoch"
The Secrets of Enoch
"Enoch was the first who
invented books and different sorts of writing. The ancient Greeks
declare that Enoch is the same as Mercury Trismegistus [Hermes], and
that he taught the sons of men the art of building cities, and
enacted some admirable laws...He discovered the knowledge of the
Zodiac, and the course of the Planets; and he pointed out to the
sons of men, that they should worship God, that they should fast,
that they should pray, that they should give alms, votive offerings,
and tenths. He reprobated abominable foods and drunkenness, and
appointed festivals for sacrifices to the Sun, at each of the
Zodiacal Signs."
- Hebraeus
According to Masonic lore, Enoch was the inventor of writing, "that he
taught men the art of building", and that, before the flood, he
"feared that the real secrets would be lost - to prevent which he
concealed the grand Secret, engraven on a white oriental porphyry
stone, in the bowels of the earth."
- Royal Masonic
Cyclopaedia
"In his Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus writes that Adam had
forewarned his descendants that sinful humanity would be destroyed
by a deluge. In order to preserve their science and philosophy, the
children of Seth therefore raised two pillars, one of brick and the
other of stone, on which were inscribed the keys to their knowledge.
- Manly P. Hall, Masonic,
Hermetic, Quabbalistic & Rosicrucian Symbolical Philosophy
The children of Seth "also were the inventors of that peculiar sort of
wisdom which is concerned with the heavenly bodies, and their order.
And that their inventions might not be lost before they were
sufficiently known, upon Adam's prediction that the world was to be
destroyed at one time by the force of fire, and at another time by
the violence and quantity of water, they made two pillars, the one
of brick, the other of stone: they inscribed their discoveries on
them both, that in case the pillar of brick should be destroyed by
the flood, the pillar of stone might remain, and exhibit those
discoveries to mankind; and also inform them that there was another
pillar of brick erected by them. Now this remains in the land of
Siriad to this day."
- Flavius Josephus,
Antiquities of the Jews Bk I, Ch II, Sn 3
According to one legend,
Enoch had foreknowledge of the coming Deluge.
"The patriarch
Enoch....constructed an underground temple [at Moriah] consisting of
nine vaults, one beneath the other, placing in the deepest vault a
triangular tablet of gold [a 'white oriental porphyry stone' in one
version] bearing upon it the absolute and ineffable name of Deity.
According to some accounts, Enoch made two golden deltas. The larger
he placed upon the white cubical altar in the lowest vault and the
smaller [inscribed with strange words Enoch had gained from the
angels] he gave into the keeping of his son, Methuselah, who did the
actual construction work of the brick chambers according to the
pattern revealed to his father by the Most High. In the form and
arrangements of these vaults Enoch epitomized the nine spheres of
the ancient Mysteries and the nine sacred strata of the earth
through which the initiate must pass to reach the flaming Spirit
dwelling in its central core."
- Manly P. Hall, Masonic,
Hermetic, Quabbalistic & Rosicrucian Symbolical Philosophy
"The vaults were then sealed, and upon the spot Enoch had two
indestructible columns constructed - one of marble, so that it might
'never burn', and the other of Laterus, or brick, so that it might
'not sink in water'.
"On the brick column were inscribed the 'seven sciences' of mankind,
the so-called 'archives' of Masonry, while on the marble column he
'placed an inscription stating that a short distance away a
priceless treasure would be found in a subterranean vault'. Enoch
then retired to Mount Moriah, traditionally equated with the Temple
Mount in Jerusalem, where he was 'translated' to heaven.
- Andrew Collins, From the
Ashes of Angels - The Forbidden Legacy of a Fallen Race (1996) p. 13
Methuselah "took the object back to Sippar. Enoch remained at Moriah,
to become the old man on the mountain. He lived 365 years, according
to Genesis, and then he died. Or did he vanish into thin air?"
- Brian , "ENOCH The
Greatest Story Never Told"
Rediscovery of the
Vaults
"In time, King Solomon
uncovered the hidden vaults while constructing his legendary temple
and learned of their divine secrets. Memory of these two ancient
pillars of Enoch was preserved by the Freemasons, who set up
representations of them in their lodges. Known as the Antediluvian
Pillars, or Enoch's Pillars, they were eventually replaced by
representations of the two huge columns named 'Jachin' and 'Boaz',
said to have stood on each side of the entrance porch to Solomon's
Temple."
- Andrew Collins, From the
Ashes of Angels - The Forbidden Legacy of a Fallen Race (1996) p. 13
Enoch's "name signified in the Hebrew, INITIATE or INITIATOR. The
legend of the columns, of granite and brass or bronze, erected by
him, is probably symbolical. That of bronze, which survived the
flood, is supposed to symbolize the mysteries, of which Masonry is
the legitimate successor from the earliest times the custodian and
depository of the great philosophical and religious truths, unknown
to the world at large, and handed down from age to age by an
unbroken current of tradition, embodied in symbols, emblems, and
allegories."
- General Albert Pike,
Morals and Dogma
1 Enoch
Discovery of the "Lost Text"
"The Greek word
pseudepigrapha is a Greek word meaning 'falsely superscribed,' or
what we moderns might call writing under a pen name. The
classification, 'OT Pseudepigrapha,' is a label that scholars have
given to these writings."
- Craig A. Evans,
Noncanonical Writings and New Testament Interpretation, (1992) p. 22
"The Book of Enoch is a pseudepigraphical work (a work that claims to
be by a biblical character). The Book of Enoch was not included in
either the Hebrew or most Christian biblical canons, but could have
been considered a sacred text by the sectarians."
- Milik, Jazef. T., ed.
The Books of Enoch: Aramaic Fragments of Qumran Cave 4
The Book of Enoch is "an ancient composition known from two sets of
versions, an Ethiopic one that scholars identify as '1 Enoch', and a
Slavonic version that is identified as '2 Enoch', and which is also
known as The Book of the Secrets of Enoch. Both versions, of which
copied manuscripts have been found mostly in Greek and Latin
translations, are based on early sources that enlarged on the short
biblical mention that Enoch, the seventh Patriarch after Adam, did
not die because, at age 365, 'he walked with God' - taken heavenward
to join the deity."
-
Zecharia Sitchin,
When Time Began
"I Enoch, also known as the Ethiopic Apocalypse of Enoch, is the
oldest of the three pseudepigraphal books attributed to Enoch, the
man who apparently did not die, but was taken up to heaven (Gen
5:24). The book was originally written in either Hebrew or Aramaic,
perhaps both, but it survives in complete form only in Ethiopic
(Ge'ez), and in fragmentary form in Aramaic, Greek (1:1-32:6;
6:1-10:14; 15:8-16:1; 89:42-49; 97:6-104), and Latin (106:1-18)."
"The materials in I Enoch range in date from 200 B.C.E. to 50 C.E. I
Enoch contributes much to intertestamental views of angels, heaven,
judgment, resurrection, and the Messiah. This book has left its
stamp upon many of the NT writers, especially the author of
Revelation."
- Craig A. Evans,
Noncanonical Writings and New Testament Interpretation, (1992) p. 23
"Prior to the eighteenth century, scholars had believed the Book of
Enoch to be irretrievably lost: composed long before the birth of
Christ, and considered to be one of the most important pieces of
Jewish mystical literature, it was only known from fragments and
from references to it in other texts. James Bruce changed all this
by procuring several copies of the missing work during his stay in
Ethiopia. These were the first complete editions of the Book of
Enoch ever to be seen in Europe."
- Graham Hancock, The Sign
and the Seal
"The Book of Enoch remained in darkness until 1821, when the long
years of dedicated work by a professor of Hebrew at the University
of Oxford were finally rewarded with the publication of the first
ever English translation of the Book of Enoch. The Reverend Richard
Laurence, Archbishop of Cashel, had labored for many hundreds of
hours over the faded manuscript in the hands of the Bodleian
Library, carefully substituting English words and expressions for
the original Geez, while comparing the results with known extracts,
such as the few brief chapters preserved in Greek by Syncellus
during the ninth century."
- Andrew Collins, From the
Ashes of Angels - The Forbidden Legacy of a Fallen Race (1996) p. 21
"The original Aramaic version was lost until the Dead Sea fragments
were discovered."
"The original language of most of this work was, in all likelihood,
Aramaic (an early Semitic language). Although the original version
was lost in antiquity, portions of a Greek translation were
discovered in Egypt and quotations were known from the Church
Fathers. The discovery of the texts from Qumran Cave 4 has finally
provided parts of the Aramaic original. ...Humankind is called on to
observe how unchanging nature follows God's will."
- Milik, Jazef. T., ed.
The Books of Enoch: Aramaic Fragments of Qumran Cave 4
Composition
"1 Enoch, preserved in a
full, 108-chapter form in Ethiopic, consists of five parts and one
appended chapter. It originated in Aramaic (perhaps Hebrew for
chaps. 37-71), was translated into Greek, and from Greek into
Ethiopic."
- James C. Vanderkam
(Professor of Hebrew Scriptures at the University of Notre Dame)
"The Aramaic Book of Enoch...very considerably influenced the idiom of
the New Testament and patristic literature, more so in fact than any
other writing of the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha."
- Norman Golb, Who Wrote
the Dead Sea Scrolls?, (1995) p. 366
"As it now stands, I Enoch appears to consist of the following five
major divisions:
(1) The Book of the
Watchers (chaps. 1-36);
(2) The Book of the Similitudes (chaps. 37-7l);
(3) The Book of Astronomical Writings (chaps. 72-82);
(4) The Book of Dream Visions (chaps. 83-90); and
(5) The Book of the Epistle of Enoch (chaps. 91-107)."
- Craig A. Evans,
Noncanonical Writings and New Testament Interpretation, (1992) p. 23
"Chaps. 1-36 The Book of the Watchers may date from the third century
BCE. Parts of its text have been identified on several copies from
Qumran cave 4; the earliest fragmentary manuscript (4QEnocha) dates,
according to the editor J.T. Milk, to between 200 and 150 BCE. All
Qumran copies are in the Aramaic language."
- James C. Vanderkam
"James Vanderkam divides the first part of 1 Enoch into five sections:
-
1-5 a theophany followed
by an eschatological admonition
-
6-11 the angel story
(stories)
-
12-16 Enoch and the failed
petition of the angels who descended,
-
17-19 Enoch's first
journey,
-
20-36 Enoch's second
journey (chap. 20 is a list of angels who are connected with the
journeys)."
- Tom Simms (CrossTalk)
"Chaps. 37-71 The Book of Parables (or the Similitudes of Enoch) may
have been composed in the late first century BCE; a number of
scholars prefer to place it in the first or even the second century
CE. Milik assigns it to the late third century CE. No fragments of
these chapters have been found at Qumran, and some think their
original language was Hebrew, not Aramaic."
- James C. Vanderkam
As described in the Book of the Parables:
"On the one side are God, the heavenly entourage, the agents of his
judgment...and God's people...On the other are the chief demon
Azazel, his angels, and the kings and the mighty...[who] would have
their counterparts among the Roman generals, governors, triumvirs,
and monarchs whose activities in Judaea are well documented in the
sources."
- George Nickelsburg,
Jewish Literature Between the Bible and the Mishnah
"Chaps. 72-82 The Astronomical Book, like the Book of Watchers, may
date from the third century BCE; the oldest copy of it seems to have
been made not long after 200 BCE. Sizable portions of the text are
preserved on four copies, written in Aramaic, from Qumran cave 4.
The Aramaic original appears to have been much different and much
longer than the Ethiopic text, adding far more astronomical
details."
- James C. Vanderkam
Authorship
"The Judaic Law of the
Pentateuch had come to be conceived as the final and supreme
revelation of God ... there was now no room for independent
representatives ... such as the post-Exilic prophets. As Zechariah
made clear in his parable of the Foolish Shepherd, 'a man could, or
ought to be put to death for setting himself up as a prophet.'"
- Ian Wilson, Jesus, The
Evidence, p. 62
"Thus the names of pseudonymous authors were used, of Isaiah or even
ancient Enoch."
- Chris King, "The
Apocalyptic Tradition"
King argues that 1 Enoch is an unmistakable product of Hellenistic
civilization (although its roots are firmly embedded in Mesopotamian
and Persian tradition).
"A world view so encyclopaediac that it embraced the geography of
heaven and earth, astronomy, meteorology, medicine was no part of
Jewish tradition - but was familiar to educated Greeks, but
attempting to emulate and surpass Greek wisdom, by having an
integrating divine plan for destiny, elaborated through an angelic
host with which Enoch is in communication through his mystical
travels.quot;
- Chris King, "The
Apocalyptic Tradition"
Although the Book of Enoch is considered as apocryphal, it was clearly
known to early Christian writers as the following quote from 1 Enoch
1:9 indicates:
"In the seventh (generation) from Adam Enoch also prophesied these
things, saying: 'Behold, the Lord came with his holy myriads, to
execute judgment on all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their
ungodly deeds which they have committed in such an ungodly way, and
of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners spoke against him'."
- Jude 14-15
A Dream or Literary
Licence?
"And I went off and sat
down at the waters of Dan, in the land of Dan, to the south of the
west of Hermon: I read their petition till I fell asleep. And behold
a dream came to me, and visions fell down upon me, and I saw visions
of chastisement, and a voice came bidding (me) I to tell it to the
sons of heaven, and reprimand them."
- 1 Enoch 13:7b-8
"What one can say about Enoch in 1 Enoch 13 (and this applies to
Daniel and Ezekiel also) is that the narrative has a seer or a
prophet engage in the ritual for an incubation oracle by sleeping at
a sacred spring, etc. So we have a pseudepigraphical character (at
least for Enoch and Daniel) depicted as engaging in an actual ritual
(for that matter, 4 Ezra has Ezra spend a week in the fields eating
flowers). While all of this may represent a deliberate fiction, it
does at least develop its fiction in terms of the ancient world's
fascination with the seeking of dreams and visions for oracular
purposes. For that matter, the fascination with seeking dreams and
visions includes the recording of those dreams, as the inscriptions
from the temples of Asclepius show, so we have some kind of contact
between dreaming (or visions) and written documents. The problem in
knowning what to make of the apocalypses is that they are
pseudepigraphical, but they are at least depicting their
pseudepigraphical characters engaging in rituals that were thought
by the ancients to stimulate oracular dreams. The issue for the
historian is not epistemology but the conceptual world of the people
writing the texts."
- David W. Suter
(Mediators)
These texts, which evolved into Hekhalot literature, were evidently
written by scribes familiar with folk traditions of magic to compete
with the more learned rabbis.
"The experiences described in the Hekhalot literature do not seem much
like mysticism. There is no thought of mystical union. God is nearly
as remote in the heavenly throne room as he is on earth. Nor is
Hekhalot esotericism merely magic: it includes visionary experiences
atypical of magic and often seems to be functioning in the context
of a community. I propose therefore that the most illuminating
framework for these experiences is shamanism."
"The clearest example of an initiatory disintegration and
reintegration in the Hekhalot literature is found in one of its
latest strata: the description of the transformation of the mortal
Enoch into the angel Metatron in 3 Enoch 3-15 (paras. 4-19). Enoch's
experience is much like that of the shamans:"
- James R. Davila,
"Hekhalot Literature and Mysticism"
2 Enoch - Later Writings
"2 Enoch, or the Slavonic
Apocalypse of Enoch, was written late first century C.E. in Egypt by
a Jew. It survives only in late Old Slavonic manuscripts. It may
have been composed originally in Aramaic or Hebrew, later being
translated into Greek, and later still being translated into Old
Slavonic. It is an amplification of Gen 5:21-32 (from Enoch to the
Flood). Major theological themes include:
(1) God created the world
out of nothing (24:2);
(2) seven heavens (30:2-3) and angelic hosts;
(3) God created the souls of men before the foundation of the earth
(23:5);
(4) abodes of heaven and hell are already prepared for righteous and
sinners;
(5) ethical teachings, which at times parallel those of the NT and
Proverbs."
- Craig A. Evans,
Noncanonical Writings and New Testament Interpretation, (1992) p. 23
3 Enoch
"3 Enoch 1-16 [is] a work
that existed by the 9th century C.E., and that obviously contains
earlier traditions."
- James Davila,
"Enoch as
a Divine Mediator"
"3 Enoch, or the Hebrew Apocalypse of Enoch, was supposedly written by
Rabbi Ishmael the 'high priest' after his visionary ascension into
heaven (d. 132 C.E.). Although it contains a few Greek and Latin
loan words, there is no reason to suspect that the original language
of 3 Enoch was anything other than Hebrew. Whereas some of the
traditions of 3 Enoch may be traced back to the time of Rabbi
Ishmael, and even earlier, the date of composition is probably
closer to the fifth or sixth centuries. It was probably written in
or near Babylon. The book may be divided into the following four
major parts:
(1) The ascension of
Ishmael (chaps. 1-2);
(2) Ishmael meets the exalted Enoch (chaps. 3-16);
(3) a description of the heavenly household (chaps. 17-40); and
(4) the marvels of heaven (chaps. 41-48)."
- Craig A. Evans,
Noncanonical Writings and New Testament Interpretation, (1992) p. 24
"Here are a few examples of parallels between the two works [1 Enoch
and 3 Enoch]:
-
There is a story or
stories about precious metals and how they will not avail their
users and those who make idols from them (1 Enoch 52; 65:6-8; 67:4-7
// 3 Enoch 5:7-14).
-
One of the characters is a
hostile angel named Azaz'el/Aza'el (1 Enoch 54:5; 55:4; 69:2 // 3
Enoch 4:6; 5:9);
-
Enoch ascends to heaven in
a storm chariot (1 Enoch 52:1; 70:1-3; // 3 Enoch 6:1; 7:1);
-
Enoch is transformed into
an angel (1 Enoch 71:11-17 // 3 Enoch 9:1-5; 15:1-2);
-
Enoch as an exalted angel
is enthroned in heaven (1 Enoch 55:4; 61:8; 62:1-5; 69:29 // 3 Enoch
10:1-3; 16:1);
-
and he receives a
revelation of cosmological secrets of creation (1 Enoch 69:16-26 //
3 Enoch 13:1-2)."
- James Davila,
"Enoch as
a Divine Mediator"
"...The parallels between the Similitudes and 3 Enoch 3-15 are
centered around eight elements in both pericopae:
(1.) The heroes of the
work (Rabbi Ishmael and Enoch: a biblical character and an
extra-biblical character)
(2.) Angelology (good and evil angels)
(3.) Enoch / Metatron versus the 'elect one' 'the son of man'
(4.) The throne and the Shekinah
(5.) Eschatology
(6.) The oath / power inherent in letters
(7.) The heavenly ascent and
(8.) Wisdom."
- Bankole Davies-Browne,
"Abstract 3 - Enoch and the Similitudes of Enoch"
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