Hey, my friends. It's Matt. It's the 10 minute Bible hour podcast. And for the last

few days, we've been talking about the super ancient Hebrew version of Esther, the original

version. And we've been talking about the later Greek editions to Esther and how those

Greek editions kind of make sense. And I see why people did it, given the pressures of

that moment in time. But it modest the water a little bit in terms of what you're reading

when you pick up a random Bible, because some of them will have those editions to Esther

that are an expression of that later Greek tradition. And others will be the one that

we're looking at, which is the historic original version rooted in the Hebrew.

So the Greek translation of the Old Testament called the Septuagint happens. It's out there,

it's in circulation. It gets quoted and cited and assumed a whole bunch in the New Testament.

And as we get past the time of Jesus and out of the first century into the second century,

and as the canon is really taking shape amongst Christians of what is the Old Testament

and what is the New Testament. Esther ends up getting debated more than a whole lot of

other books of the Bible because of this later tradition and these later editions. And

not everybody being quite sure what to do with them. Well, then you get into the 400s. There's

this guy named Jerome and he does this amazing translation project. One of the most important works

of writing and translation ever in the history of ever. And it's called the Latin Volgate. He takes

the source material of the Hebrew and the Greek and he translates it all into Latin. And obviously,

the Western Catholic Church associated with Rome leans very heavily on this translation for a

very long time. Again, Jerome is considered a saint. Well, Jerome understood that these Greek

editions were just that Greek editions. So he translated the Hebrew portions, the early stuff of

Esther, the stuff we're looking at into Latin. And that was the whole thing. Then after that,

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