The Problem

The Old Testament contains over 6,000 instances of God's proper name YHVH (translated as LORD in the KJV), and over 3,000 instances of Elohim, the generic word for God. This is, of course, exactly what we would expect in the fundamental religious text of the Jews. But these numbers also contain a mystery. There are two Books in the Old Testament - Esther and the Song of Songs - that contain no instance of either YHVH or God. Neither do they contain any references to prayer, supplication, or any Jewish religious practice. This raises a serious problem that has been discussed by Jews and Christians throughout the ages:

The problem with these books is amplified by their seemingly secular content. Critics have called Esther a , and most modern scholarship asserts that the Song of Solomon is nothing but a

How do we determine the content of the Canon?

The problem of how to determine the content of the Canon is a fundamental challenge for those who hold to the doctrine of Sola Scritpura which declares that the Bible, and the Bible alone, is the sole source of all Christian doctrines. since the Bible does not contain an inspired list of the books it should contain. This is the primary line of attack by Catholics, who insist that Sola Scriptura is an inconsistent doctrine because it is not itself derived from the the Bible. They assert that an infallible Church is the only way to establish an infallible Canon. This forced Reformed and Evangelical Christians to attempt a has generated a huge

The Books of Esther and the Song of Solomon are famous as the only two Books of the Old Testament that fail to make any mention of God whatsoever. Traditional exegetes have found great significance. The other is the Song of Solomon

The Divine design of the Book of Esther - including both its content and its placement in the Canon - is one of the greatest proofs of the Bible Wheel. The power of this revelation is that each discovery works both ways - the integration of Esther with the meaning of the corresponding Hebrew letter Pey First, the

The Divine integration of Esther with the Pey KeyWord panim (face) is discussed at length on Spoke 17 in the article Esther: The Hidden Face of God".

The apocryphal additions to Esther consist of 107 verses found in the Greek Septuagint version. They are interspersed throughout the text.

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