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  Alan Garrow Didache

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ISBL/EABS Uppsala 2025 Videos now available

26/6/2025

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Ryan Leasure tells the story of how he came to suspect that  Matthew used Luke

19/6/2025

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​Ryan Leasure has served as a pastor at Grace Bible Church in Moore, SC since 2015, and is a PhD student at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. 
 
"During my years of seminary training at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, I was taught by disciples of Robert Stein—a well-known proponent of the Two Document Hypothesis (2DH). After hearing their arguments for the 2DH, I embraced the theory myself. Not much changed for several years after seminary. After all, many of my favorite scholars held to the 2DH which was good enough for me. Then 2020 happened, and the world shut down because of COVID. For whatever reason, I took up Kurt Aland’s Synopsis of the Four Gospels and worked through it from beginning to end. As I did, I created a Word document for the hundreds of synopses in Aland’s book, color-coding each one to give myself a clearer picture of the similarities and differences in the Gospels. I performed this procedure in both English and Greek.
 
As I conducted this study, I made a few observations that caused me to reevaluate my position. First, I was struck by how many times Matthew and Luke agreed with each other against Mark in the Triple Tradition (TT). Prior to my study, I was not aware of the Minor Agreements. Yet, doing the synopsis opened my eyes to dozens of them—some of which seemed too “coincidental” to have happened by chance. How, for instance, could both Matthew and Luke have added the word διεστραμμένη (“twisted”) to Mark’s “O faithless generation” (Matt 17:17; Luke 9:41)? Or how could both Matthew and Luke have independently inserted the same phrase, “Who is it that struck you” during Jesus’s trial (Matt 26:68; Luke 22:64)? Changes like these ones undermined Matthew and Luke’s independence in my mind.
 
Second, I was struck by the Major Agreements between Matthew and Luke—passages that are frequently referred to as “Mark-Q overlaps.” Two in particular stood out to me. The Preaching of John the Baptist where both Matthew and Luke pick up Mark’s TT at the same place mid-sentence and finish it with the same Double Tradition (DT) material did not seem like it could have happened by mere coincidence. It looked as if one Evangelist had been influenced by the other. The Beelzebul Controversy also drew my attention. As was true with John’s preaching, both Matthew and Luke insert large chunks of DT material into Mark’s TT in the same places. Again, this seemed to undermine their independence. One such insertion is a thirty-seven-word paragraph (Matt 12:27-28; Luke 11:19-20) that is essentially word-for-word with one minor exception. Whereas Luke reports that Jesus casts out demons by the “finger of God,” Matthew claims it is by the “Spirit of God.” Having known Luke’s proclivities towards the role of the Spirit, it seemed unlikely to me that Luke would have changed Matthew’s “Spirit” to “finger.”
 
Thus, while this passage also confirmed for me that Matthew and Luke did not operate independently, it also got me thinking that perhaps Matthew made use of Luke. Only later would I discover that ancient compositional procedures support Matthew’s use of Luke in this passage rather than Luke’s use of Matthew.   
 
Third, I was struck by how Matthew appears to be the most “developed” of the three Synoptics. For instance, Matthew is the only Synoptic to make an explicit Trinitarian reference (Matt 28:19). He is the only one to give instructions to the church (Matt 18:15-20). He alone gives the exception clause with respect to divorce (Matt 19:9). Twice, he calls Jesus “Lord” when Mark calls him “Teacher” and Luke calls him “Master” (e.g., Calming of the Storm and the Transfiguration). This progressive development from “Teacher” to “Master” to “Lord” made the most sense in my mind compared to alternative orderings. And Matthew is the only one to contain explicit “fulfillment formulas,” despite the other Evangelists agreeing that Jesus fulfilled the Jewish Scriptures.
 
One clear example of Matthew’s development that jumped out at me was the Sign of Jonah pericope. In Mark 8:12, Jesus says that “no sign will be given to this generation.” In Luke 11:29-30, Jesus says “no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah. For as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh, so will the Son of Man be to this generation.” In Matthew 12:39-40, however, Jesus remarks, “no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” As I compared these passages, it struck me that both Matthew and Luke added “except the sign of Jonah” to Mark’s text. Yet, Matthew’s explicit reference to the resurrection makes better sense if he used Luke as a source rather than Luke’s omission of the resurrection if he had used Matthew.
 
Fourth, I was struck by the comparison between Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount (SoM) and Luke’s Sermon on the Plain (SoP). It was very difficult for me to see that Luke would have dismantled the SoM in the way that he did if he had used Matthew. The reverse scenario seemed far more likely to me. Matthew used Luke’s SoP as a core text, and then filled it out with other complementary materials. As I continued to study Matthew’s discourses further, I realized that he adopted a similar procedure with his other four discourses as well. In each instance, he had taken a section from Mark as his core and then filled it out with other topically-related materials.
 
After working through Aland and being persuaded that Matthew probably used both Mark and Luke, I began reading literature on the Synoptic Problem (SP). Initially, as I read through secondary and tertiary sources, I could not find anyone who agreed with my view. In fact, most did not even acknowledge it as a possibility. This omission perplexed me as it seemed like such a simple, straight-forward solution. So far as I knew, the view did not even have a name. Only later would I learn that it was known as the Matthean Posteriority Hypothesis (MPH).
 
No introduction to the Gospels that I had read acknowledged it as a possibility. Each one dealt with the 2DH, the Farrer Hypothesis (FH), the Griesbach Hypothesis (GH), and occasionally the Augustinian Hypothesis. I reread Stein’s Studying the Synoptic Gospels and found that he devoted only one sentence to the MPH. He wrote that it “is seldom argued today and will not be discussed at length” (p. 99). I found something similar in Goodacre’s The Synoptic Problem. He wrote that the MPH “is rarely put forward by sensible scholars and will not be considered here” (p. 109). I read The Synoptic Problem: Four Views edited by Porter and Dyer and, again, discovered that it was not one of the four major views. Yet that book further confirmed for me that the MPH was the best solution to the Synoptic Problem. But why was this view ignored as a viable option? After reading several books and articles, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something must be wrong with the theory since no one took the time to discuss it.
 
Eventually, I reached out to Mark Goodacre and asked him about the possibility of the MPH. That’s when he pointed me to Alan Garrow’s website. After perusing his website and watching his videos, I reached out to Alan and discovered that he and others had already been “beating the drum” for the MPH. I was introduced to other MPH scholars and received confirmation that the MPH is not an “out there” theory. It is one that sensible scholars have been engaging with for decades."

More MPH Origin Stories

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ISBL/EABS 2025 Uppsala - Synoptic Gospels/Living in the Last Days

10/5/2025

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Living in the Last Days: Matthew
11.00am-12.30pm June 25th
​International SBL/EABS - Uppsala, Sweden

Tying up loose Ends: The making of Matthew’s Apocalyptic Discourse
What was Matthew’s primary concern? According to the Matthean Posteriority Hypothesis (MPH) – an increasingly prominent approach to the Synoptic Problem – Matthew was motivated to gather and combine related materials from a range of different sources. For example, under the MPH, Matthew created the Sermon on the Mount by using Luke’s Sermon on the Plain as his ‘frame’ and filling out that frame with related materials from elsewhere in Luke, Mark, and other sources. A similar pattern is observable in Matthew’s Apocalyptic Discourse. MPH Matthew takes Mark 13 as his ‘frame’ and fills that out with related materials from Luke and other sources. This gathering instinct suggests that Matthew’s primary concern was not the privileging of one eschatological outlook over another, but the preservation and transmission of a diversity of outlooks. 



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ISBL Uppsala - Apostolic Fathers

10/5/2025

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Intertextuality in the Writings of the Apostolic Fathers,
2.00-3.30pm June 26th
​International SBL - Uppsala, Sweden
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The Original Didache:
The Decree beneath the Scriptures

Paul, James, Matthew and Luke all appear to have known lost sources that they treated as highly authoritative. For example, Paul quotes an unknown Scripture in 1 Cor 2.9, references a mysterious written authority in 1 Cor 4.6, and appeals to an enigmatic 'Word of the Lord' in 1 Thess 4.15. James, on the other hand, directs the reader to an authoritative 'implanted word', that is also a 'mirror', and a 'law of liberty'. And, of course, scholars have long suspected that both Luke and Matthew made use of a highly authoritative written source that included, for example, Jesus' sayings on retaliation and love of enemies. This paper proposes that, in each case, the text these authors had in view was the earliest form of the Didache – a text also recognisable as the full text of the Apostolic Decree (cf. Acts 15).

Poster based on KonTiki  


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The No.1 reason for rejecting Farrer

17/9/2024

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In the beginning, scholars interested in the relationship between Luke and Matthew were confident of two things. First, Matthew could not have used Luke because Matthew is first generation and Luke second (an assumption that no longer holds). Second, Luke could not have used Matthew because this would require Luke to dismember Matthew's supreme achievement, the Sermon on the Mount.
 
In conversations I've had with semi-interested scholars and students over many years I’ve learned that the most common objection to the theory that Luke used Matthew (as proposed by the Farrer Hypothesis – FH), is the way if requires Luke to treat Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount. This is a sticking point that sticks. The Sermon on the Mount is so well known that even relatively casual observers can register the problem. Why would Luke remove and scatter the innards of Matthew's Sermon, leaving behind the shorter, less memorable Sermon on the Plain?

For Farrer theorists there must be a reason, since they are convinced, on other grounds, that Luke used Matthew. The problem can only lie, therefore, with the subjective halo that surrounds the Sermon on the Mount. If that bubble could be burst, then this prime reason for rejecting the FH could be overcome. Accordingly, FH supporters have, over the years, ventured pragmatic, aesthetic, procedural, theological and literary motivations for FH Luke's behaviour.[1] The problem with all these approaches, however, is that they end up placing FH Luke in a minority of one. Matthew’s is by far the most widely quoted Gospel from the second century onwards and, in the course of that time, no one has ever complained about his Sermon being too long, too rich in content, too comprehensive, insufficiently aesthetically pleasing, too theologically insubstantial, or too out of step with literary expectation. Rather, as Luke Timothy Johnson puts it: "In the history of Christian thought - indeed in the history of those observing Christianity - the Sermon on the Mount has been considered an epitome of the teaching of Jesus and therefore, for many, the essence of Christianity".[2]   For nearly two millennia, therefore, Matthew 5-7 has been the go-to place for the ethical teaching of Jesus. If Farrer’s Luke thought his readers would prefer it if he scattered this resource amongst the unrelated content of Luke 6, 8, 12, 13, 14, and 16, then he was wrong. Comprehensively wrong.

At this point I step back and return to the beginning. The Farrer theorists’ mistake, so far as I can see it, is that they absorbed the early assumption that Matthew could not have used Luke.[3] This caused them to equate good evidence of direct copying between Luke and Matthew with good evidence that Luke used Matthew. This then fuelled their conviction that, no matter how counterintuitive it may seem, Luke must have had a motive for dismantling Matthew’s Sermon. In consequence, they have engaged in ever more detailed explanations for what that reason might have been. But why keep pushing water up this hill? Why not go with the flow?

Under the Matthean Posteriority Hypothesis (MPH), in which Matthew used Luke, all the water runs in the same direction. Now, just as Matthew puts flesh on the skeleton provided by Mark’s Gospel to create his more popular Matthew’s Gospel, so he also puts flesh on the skeleton provided by Luke’s Sermon on the Plain to create his more popular Sermon on the Mount. With the most popular objection to the FH thus turned on its head, a new question arises. What could be the number one reason for rejecting the MPH?[4]  

[For a more detailed discussion of how FH Luke and MPH Matthew use one another's Sermons, see the video 'Did Matthew use Luke?']

[1] Austin Farrer began this process in, ‘On Dispensing with Q’, in Studies in the Gospels: Essays in Memory of R. H. Lightfoot (Blackwell, 1955) 65, where he defends Luke’s right to make of his ‘garden’ whatever he will, regardless of the aesthetic disapproval of onlookers. Michael Goulder, in Luke: A New Paradigm (Sheffield Academic Press,1989) 347, expresses the view that, ‘Matthew’s Sermon is far too long. Who can take in so much spiritual richness in a single gulp?’ Mark Matson, in, ‘Luke’s rewriting of the Sermon on the Mount’, in Questioning Q, (SPCK, 2004) 64, argues that Luke’s reordering has a “distinctive theology”. Mark Goodacre, in ‘Re-Walking the ‘Way of the Lord’: Luke’s Use of Mark and his Reaction to Matthew’, in, Luke’s Literary Creativity (Bloomsbury, 2016), suggests that Mark’s ‘Way of the Lord’ is the motif that guides the distribution of Luke’s source material. Joel Archer in, ‘Ancient Bioi and Luke’s Modification of Matthew’s Longer Discourses’, New Testament Studies (2022) 76-88, argues that Luke shortens Matthew’s long speeches to conform them to the standard set by other ancient biographies.

[2] Luke Timothy Johnson, ‘The Sermon on the Mount’, in The Oxford Companion to Christian Thought (Oxford University Press, 2000) 654 - quoted by Joel Archer in the article noted above.

[3] The absorption of this assumption also applies to proponents of the Two Document Hypothesis – in which Matthew and Luke independently used both Mark and Q. It was their lack of engagement with this option that caused Mark Goodacre similarly to disregard it. Thus, in The Synoptic Problem: A Way Through the Maze (Continuum, 2001) 108, he states: "The theory that Matthew has read Luke ... is rarely put forward by sensible scholars and will not be considered here".

[4] I set out to identify the biggest problem with the MPH in ‘Gnat’s Camels and Matthew’s use of Luke’ 



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Does the Original Didache lie behind both Acts and Galatians?

2/8/2024

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I propose that, beneath the surface of the version of the Didache discovered by Bryennios, lie two previously separate documents that were spliced together and then overlaid with later material. A conference presentation summarising this idea is available here: BNTS 2023

An argument for thinking that one of these two documents is the Apostolic Decree (referred to in Acts 15), is that it resolves the Acts-Galatians conundrum. A conference presentation on this topic is available here: BNTS 2017

A further exploration of this topic is now available as part of a Brill collection of essays in honour of Clayton Jefford. Here is the opening section (pp. 120-121) of my essay: "Salvation by One Step or Two?: The Didache, Acts and the Background to Galatians".

​"Paul faced an extraordinary challenge. By some means, his opponents had persuaded the Galatians that their membership in the salvation group rested not on one step but two. These Christians had previously been so loyal that they would have plucked out their eyes for Paul’s sake (Gal 4:15), so how could his opponents have persuaded them that salvation required the extra step of full Torah observance, including circumcision? An indication of their method might perhaps be found in the fact that Paul describes the Galatians as foolish (3:1, 3) and as having been bewitched (3:1), persuaded (5:8), and confused (5:10) by his opponents. Paul apparently detects some element of deception. But what trick could have been used to convince these Christians to adopt a belief so utterly at odds with what Paul had previously taught? A clue might be found in the fact that Paul finds it necessary to urge the Galatians to reject the circumcision gospel even if it should appear that he himself is teaching it (1:8). This suggests that the circumcision party had somehow found a way to present their gospel as something that Paul himself endorsed. This would explain the otherwise inexplicable fact that Paul feels the need to provide specific evidence that he is not teaching circumcision: “why am I still being persecuted if I am still preaching circumcision” (5:11).[1] But how could any of this have been possible? How could Paul’s opponents have perverted his gospel so convincingly that the whole community of Galatian Christians was taken in?

​As I attempt to answer this question, I begin by picking up a thread hinted at by Clayton Jefford in 1992:
[I]t is quite probable that the Redactor [of the Didache] was intimately familiar with an early version of the [Apostolic] Decree that was known and circulated within the community at Antioch. This version, which would predate the form of the Decree that eventually was incorporated into Acts, actually may have been preserved in Didache 6 in a more pristine state than the version of the Decree that appears in Acts 15. [2]
​Jefford holds back from suggesting that the Didache is the Apostolic Decree, but he does go so far as to suggest that both Luke and the author of the Didache might have had access to the original Apostolic Decree—with the latter preserving that text more faithfully than did Luke. This essay pursues that suggestion further. In what follows I will attempt to show that the Didache, in its original form, preserves the text of the Apostolic Decree directly and in full—and that it was Paul’s endorsement of this Apostolic Decree that enabled his opponents to present him as preaching the additional necessity of circumcision even though, in reality, nothing could have been further from his intention. ... "
PURCHASE AND ACCESS OPTIONS
​[1] Hans Dieter Betz writes: “What the Apostle has precisely in mind [in 5:11] will in all likelihood always be hidden from our knowledge. Presumably, he refers to matters known to the Galatians as well as to himself, but unknown to us. … If the Galatians had been told by the opponents that Paul preached circumcision, how could they believe it?” (Galatians: A Commentary on Paul’s Letter to the Churches in Galatia, Hermeneia [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979], 268).
 
[2] Clayton N. Jefford, “Tradition and Witness in Antioch: Acts 15 and Didache 6,” in Perspectives on Contemporary New Testament Questions: Essays in Honor of T. C. Smith, ed. Edgar V. McKnight (Lewiston, NY: Mellen, 1992), 75–89, here 88 … . See also Jefford, The Sayings of Jesus in the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, VCSup 11 (Leiden: Brill, 1989), 96–97.
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Matthew makes up for Luke's lack?

1/4/2024

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 One of the most frustrating passages in Luke's Gospel occurs in the story of the Road to Emmaus:
​Luke 24.26-27
Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?” Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, [Jesus] interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.
If only Cleopas, or his companion, had taken notes of Jesus' tour through Scripture.
Something similarly frustrating occurs early on in Mark's Gospel.
​Mark 1.21-22
They went to Capernaum, and when the Sabbath came, he entered the synagogue and taught. They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes.
When Matthew encounters this omission in Mark he responds with the Sermon on the Mount (inserted into the space between Mark 1.21 (combined with other scene-setting verses) and Mark 1.22).

If Matthew used Luke, as proponents of the MPH propose, then maybe he had a similar reaction in response to Luke 24.26-27? Could this be why Matthew presents virtually every major event in Jesus' life as a fulfilment of Scripture?
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Bart Ehrman's irrational faith (in Q)

12/3/2024

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If you've been following this blog for a while you might remember the '$1,000 Challenge to Bart Ehrman'. The focus of this challenge was whether Bart Ehrman had a specific reason for thinking that Matthew did not copy Luke. At that time Bart declared himself "completely convinced" by an argument offered by Mark Goodacre - even though this was an argument that didn't address the question of whether Matthew used Luke. 
A few days ago I tried asking a related question in an AMA with Bart Ehrman:
Robert Derrenbacker recently wrote:

"[I]f, for the sake of argument, one were to dispense with Q and maintain Markan priority, Matthew's use of Luke (as advanced by the supporters of the MPH) actually makes the best sense of the material in a Mark-without-Q scenario."[1]

Do you agree that Matthew using Luke (with Markan priority) is a more likely solution to the Synoptic Problem than Luke using Matthew?
Bart's full answer can be found in the clip posted above. The original context is Reddit/AcademicBiblical/BartEhrman-MatthewAMA

The arresting thing about this answer is that (after explaining the Q Theory) Bart offers a reason why he thinks Luke did not use Matthew. What he does not do is offer a comparable reason why Matthew could not have used Luke. This is, however, not surprising. The mechanics of Matthew's use of Luke are a lot like the mechanics of Matthew's use of Q - (which explains the initial quote from Robert Derrenbacker, an established Q scholar). Bart does not have a problem with the way Matthew is required to use Q, so it is understandably difficult for him to offer this type of reason why Matthew could not have used Luke. 

So far my questioning of Bart Ehrman has produced bold and confident statements that Matthew could not have used Luke, but without an explanation of the basis for that confidence. "Nobody thinks that", is not enough. And, without a rational basis for believing that Matthew could not have used Luke, Bart has no rational basis for believing in Q - a hypothetical entity in which he, nevertheless, continues to have faith.  

See also: Swinging big and swinging blind: Bart's extra gamble

[1] Robert Derrenbacker Jr., '"Unfinished" Mark "Replaced" by Matthew and Luke? Some Recent Studies and their Implications for the Synoptic Problem', in The Synoptic Problem 2022: Proceedings of the Loyola University Conference, Olegs Andrejevs, Simon J Joseph, Edmondo Lupieri, Joseph Verheyden (eds) (BiTS 44, Peeters, 2023) page 193.
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What are the Didaches? Digging beneath the surface

24/8/2023

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​At this year's meeting of the British New Testament Society, at Exeter University, I presented a paper in the Early Christianity Seminar. The video below is a 20 minute studio version.
Abstract:
On the one hand, the discovery of the Didache is commonly regarded as one of the great manuscript finds of the nineteenth century. On the other, its discovery has had remarkably little impact on how scholars think and talk about early Christianity. The reason for this disconnect is not merely that the Didache makes little sense alongside the other texts available to us but also because it fails to make sense on its own terms: simple, practical instructions in one part are sometimes directly contradicted by instructions in another. In response to this puzzle, this paper proposes that the Didache is not one document but two, which have been spliced together and overlaid with further additions. When this process is reversed, two Didaches emerge. Initial indications suggest that these are: the Complete Apostolic Decree (cf. Acts 15) and the Missing Epistle of John (cf. 3 John 9).  

The Didache Discoveries booklet serves as a handout for this session. 

Further conference videos are also available. 
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What would Plutarch, Josephus and Tatian do?

4/7/2023

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The Synoptic Problem 2022: Proceedings of the Loyola University Conference, eds Olegs Andrejevs, Simon J. Joseph, Edmondo Lupieri and Joseph Verheyden (BiTS 44, Leuven: Peeters, 2023) includes seven contributions by six MPHers including: Ron Huggins, Chakrita Saulina, Rob MacEwen, Edmondo Lupieri and Jeff Tripp.

My contribution, ''Frame and Fill' and Matthew's use of Luke', 227-298, is available Open Access.

This chapter looks at how Plutarch, Josephus, Tatian, Ammonius of Alexandria and Eusebius combined (or aligned) multiple versions of the same narrative. It concludes that Matthew using Luke runs with the grain of that practice, while Luke using Matthew does the opposite.

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    Alan Garrow is Vicar of St Peter's Harrogate and a member of SCIBS at the University of Sheffield. 

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