Newly+Revised+Reader's+Notebook+of+deeper+thinking

12/21/09 Well i need to create a more in depth report of what i am reading and this is going to be it. So lets take it from the top again...The first book of the Apocrypha is called 1 Esdras. The beginning of the book is about how the priest are to honor god. It goes from passover to the rituals of the priest. I think this is more of a field guide for religious devotes to understand the rituals and ideas of the past.Then it goes into a battle of the Carchemish and the Egyptians. The Jewish King decided to go against Egypt and the Pharaoh even though Jeremiah the prophet spoke of how god says not to fight in this war.He still went and was killed in battle after not heading the words of god.This might be another underlining message that you must always follow god or parish. Now back to the story. So after the king was killed his 23 year old son was put into place but that didn't last because the Pharaoh won. He removed him and put his brother into place.This as well might still be the punishment for not listening to god. Now when the Pharaoh's brother ruled it was only for a short time because he did what was considered evil in the sight of god. The punishment for this manifested itself in the captureing of him by Nebuchadnezzar. The next king to be put in power was his son(PB). He committed much the same sin as his father and also got the same fate(weird) then finally the son of the son of the pharaoh's brother is king now and rules for the rest of his life which happens to be the long old age of 11 years more.Now if this wasn't a blatant showing of if you are evil or displease god you will pay i don't know what else could be. Now like i said in the beginning this is almost like a field guild for the Jews to follow so they can live a long pure life.

1/8/10 And im back from a breif overload of work.The next chapter of 1 Esdras beggins with a reserectio of the dead persion king cyrus. The reason the recently dead king says that "lord the most high" has risen him is to proclaim and build a holy temple for the jews in Jerusalem.This seems to me that it is an attemp to make peaple belive that they are divinly right to make the temple.Im not saying god diddent raise a persopn from the dead but it could have just been an attemt to scare the peaple away that would try to halt the production of the temple but what do i know.This all might have not work if King cyrus could not have prodoced the holy vesses that king neberkadeser took all those years ago. So after he has this he gets the scatered tribes of jewish decent together and they head back to old jerusalem to repaire the walls and remake the temple. This begins to anger the other lord of the land that the jews were remaking their city becuse historically when they had the city they would become rebelouse and fight back. The king Artexerxes having heard this whent to hinder the workers from compleating the temple.Now this story is begining to sound like one of the odds aginst the jews and how in someway the lord is going to help them succed in the end.This still feels like a why instead of a how though. Why the jews had to fight or why the jews had to seperate form the other kings.Its the end of the chapter so i will have to read on latter to fing out more

1/15/10 The next chapter picks up some time latter. The jews are still unable to work on the temple but therecomes a reprise. The king now is a man named Darius. Now he isent a horrible king but he still wont let the jews work. Now he has three guards that watch him as he sleeps. The three start talking anbout how to get rich and they decide to write down the wises thing they can think of on a peice of paper and put it in an envolope by the king so that he will pick the wisses to be his advisor.this is what they wrote:The first wrote, Wine is the strongest.The second wrote, The king is strongest.The third wrote, Women are strongest: but above all things Truth beareth away the victory. When the king awoke and read these sentences he called all his peaple into a chamber to juge the wisdom of each. Now the short story of it is that the third won with his women create an never endding cycle and the truth will set you free speech. He happens to be jewish and when the king says he can have anything he wants the third watchman says to him"Remember thy vow, which thou hast vowed to build Jerusalem, in the day when thou camest to thy kingdom, And to send away all the vessels that were taken away out of Jerusalem, which Cyrus set apart, when he vowed to destroy Babylon, and to send them again thither." or "Let my peaple go out and build my temple and return my peaples holy vessels back to me." So this was the story of how the jewish peaple were able to rebuild their city again. So i was right parcially in my guess that this is a story of why instead of a how. It is why the jews were able to make there dreams a reality.