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Book of Esther

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Books of the Ketuvim
 
Three poetic books
Five Megillot (Scrolls)
Other books
Hebrew Bible

The Book of Esther is a book of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) and of the Old Testament.

The Book of Esther or the Megillah is the basis for the Jewish celebration of Purim. Its full text is read aloud twice during the celebration.

Setting

The Biblical Book of Esther is set in the third year of Ahasuerus, a king of Persia usually identified with Xerxes I, although other identifications have been suggested. It tells a tale of palace intrigue, attempted genocide and a brave Jewish queen.

Plot Summary

Book of Esther (Megillah)

In the story, Ahasuerus is married to Vashti, whom he puts aside after she rejects his offer to visit him during a feast. Mordecai's cousin Hadassah is selected from the candidates to be Ahasuerus' new wife and assumes the "throne name" of Esther. His prime minister Haman (an Agagite) and Haman's wife Zeresh plot to have Ahasuerus kill all the Jews, without knowing that Esther is Jewish. Esther saves the day for her people: at the risk of endangering her own safety, she warns Ahasuerus of Haman's plot to kill all the Jews. Haman is hanged on the gallows he had had built for Mordecai, and Mordecai becomes prime minister in Haman's place. However, Ahasuerus's edict decreeing the murder of the Jews cannot be rescinded, so he issues another edict allowing the Jews to take up arms and kill their enemies, which they do.

Authorship and date

Esther is usually dated to the 3rd or 4th century B.C.E. Jewish tradition regards it as a redaction by the Great Assembly of an original text written by Mordecai. The Greek additions to Esther are dated to the 2nd century B.C.E.

Debate over historicity

The historical accuracy of the Book of Esther is disputed.

As early as the eighteenth century, the lack of corroboration of any of the details of the story of the Book of Esther with what was known of Persian history from classical sources led some scholars to doubt that the book was historically accurate. It was argued that the form of the story seems closer to that of a romance than a work of history, and that many of the events depicted therein are implausible and unlikely.

In the late nineteenth century, some critics developed the theory that the Book of Esther actually was a story out of Babylonian mythology, representing the triumph of the Babylonian deities Marduk and Ishtar over the deities of Elam. Although this view is not widely held by scholars today, it remains well known.

Traditionalists have fought back, arguing that Esther can be seen to derive from real history. To do this, a variety of theories have been derived. While some prefer to try to find substantiation for the traditional identification of Ahasuerus with Xerxes I, others have argued for different identifications.

For the last hundred and fifty years, most scholars have seen the Book of Esther as a work of fiction, although some have joined with traditionalists in attempting to find a historical basis for the story. Some Christian readers have also tried to see the story as a Christian allegory, in the same vein as the Song of Solomon. The various major readings are considered separately in the sections that follow:

Interpretation of Esther as an allegory of Babylonian Mythology

The History of Religions school of thought of the late 19th and early 20th centuries which actively sought to disprove the historicity of the Bible by drawing comparisons between Biblical narratives and pagan myths. Attempts were made to draw comparisons between individuals in the Book of Esther and various real and alleged Babylonian and Elamite gods and goddesses:

  • Esther was equated with the similarly sounding Ishtar. Her original Hebrew name Hadassah was compared with Akkadian hadashatu said to be a title of Ishtar meaning "bride". The custom of preparing hamantaschen at Purim is reminiscent of a description of Ishtar in Jeremiah 7:18, when it was customary "to make cakes to the Queen of Heaven."
  • Mordecai was equated with Marduk. Marduk is a cousin of Ishtar in Chaldean mythology, as was Mordecai a cousin of Esther.
  • Vashti was said to be an Elamite goddess named Mashti.
  • Haman was said to be an Elamite god named Uman or Human (or other variations) or alternatively a Babylonian demon.
  • The festival of Purim was equated with various real and conjectural pagan festivals, including an alleged Elamite or Babylonian festival marking the victory of Ishtar and Marduk over Uman and Mashti similar to the triumph of Esther and Mordecai over their rivals Haman and Vashti. Other suggestions were: the Babylonian New Year festival (Sumerian Zagmuk, Akkadian Akitu, called Sacaea by Berosus) honouring Marduk -it was suggested that purim ("lots") originally referred to a belief that the gods chose one's fate for the year by lots; the Persian festival of Farvardigan; or the Greek festival of Pithoigia ("wine flask opening") - it was noted that Hebrew for wine press is purah resembling purim.

These views have largely been rejected by later scholars:

  • Ishtar was well known to the Jews who opposed her worship, moreover her name in Hebrew is Ashtoreth which is phonetically unrelated to Esther despite the superfical similarity when transliterated into English (Consonental root aleph-shin-tav-resh vs ayin-samech-tav-resh.) Esther is most commonly understood to be related to the Persian word for star and the Median word for myrtle, the Hebrew name Hadassah means myrtle. (See Esther for a discussion of the meaning of the name.) Akkadian hadashatu is not a standard title of Ishtar, it occurs once in a description of Ishtar as a "new bride" and its meaning is "new" not "bride". It is a cognate of Hebrew hadash (with a gutteral h) and is phonetically unrelated to "Hadassah". (Consonental root chet-dalet-shin vs he-dalet-samech.) Moreover hamantaschen originated amongst Jews of Eastern Europe in relatively recent times.
  • The name Mordecai is indeed most commonly connected with that of the god Marduk but its meaning is understood to be "[servant] of Marduk". It is considered equivalent to Marduka or Marduku, well attested in the Persepolis texts as a genuine name of the period. Jewish tradition relates that it was a replacement of his Hebrew name Bilshan. (Similar accounts of Jews in exile being assigned names relating to Babylonian gods is seen in the Book of Daniel.) Babylonian gods and goddesses are indeed organized into familes making many including Marduk and Ishtar some form of cousins but this is never a point explicitly stated in Babylonian texts.
  • An Elamite goddess named Mashti is purely conjectural and unattested in sources, whereas "Vashti" can be understood as genuine Persian name meaning "beautiful".
  • Elamite theophoric elements such as Khuban, Khumban or Khumma are known but are pronounced with a initial guttural consonent and not as Uman or Human, and are phonetically unrelated to the Persian name Haman meaning "magnificent". The Babylonian demon is named Humbaba or Huwawa also pronounced with an initial guttural consonent kh and unrelated to Haman.
  • An Elamite or Babylonian festival marking a victory of Ishtar and Marduk over alleged Uman and Mashti is purely conjectural and unattested in sources. The Babylonian New Year occurs at a very different date to Purim (in the month of Nisan not Adar). A decision of fate by lots by the gods is not attested in any sources. Farvardigan was a five day commeration of the dead bearing no resemblance to Purim. Pithoigia also occurs at a different time to Purim and although Purim is celebrated with wine drinking this not its focus; moreover the plural of the Hebrew for wine press is puroth not purim.

Historical reading

Those arguing in favour of an historical reading of Esther, who usually write from a traditionalist Jewish or Christian perspective, most commonly identify Ahasuerus with Xerxes I (ruled 486 - 465 B.C.E.) or occasionally with Artaxerxes II (ruled 405 - 359 B.C.E.).

The Hebrew Ahasuerus is mostly likely derived from Persian Khshayarsha, the origin of the Greek Xerxes. The Greek historian Herodotus wrote that Xerxes sought his harem after being defeated in the Greco-Persian Wars. He makes no reference to individual members of the harem with the exception of a domineering Queen consort Amestris, a daughter of one of his generals, Otanes. (Ctesias however refers to a father-in-law and general of Xerxes named Onaphas). Amestris has often been identified with Vashti by those arguing the historical reading. The identification is problematic however - Amestris remained a powerful figure well into the reign of her son, Artaxerxes I while Vashti is portrayed as dismissed in the early part of Xerxes's reign. (Alternative attempts have been made to identify her with Esther, although Esther's father is a Jew named Abihail and she is portrayed as merely one of numerous concubines in Ahasuerus' harem.) The name Marduka or Marduku (considered equivalent to Mordecai) has been found as the name of officials in the Persian court in thirty texts from the period of Xerxes I and his father Darius, and may refer to up to four individuals with the possibility that one of these is the Biblical Mordecai.

The Septuagint version of Esther however translates the name Ahasuerus as Artaxerxes - a Greek name derived from the Persian: Artakhshatra. Josephus too relates that this was the name by which he was known to the Greeks. It should be noted, however, that a version of the name Artaxerxes, distinct from the Hebrew for Ahasuerus, and can be found in the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah. Nevertheless, some have attempted to identify Ahasuerus with one of the Kings Artaxerxes. Identification as Artaxerxes II has been more popular than with Artaxerxes I (ruled 465 - 424 B.C.E.) however the latter had a Babylonian concubine, Kosmartydene, who was the mother of his son Darius II (ruled 424 - 405 B.C.E.). Jewish tradition relates that Esther was the mother of a King Darius and so some identify Ahasuerus with Artaxerxes I and Esther with Kosmartydene.

Based on the view that the Ahasuerus of the Book of Tobit is identical with that of the Book of Esther, some have also identified him as Nebuchadnezzar's ally Cyaxares (ruled 625 - 585 B.C.E.). In certain manuscripts of Tobit the former is called Achiachar which like the Greek: Cyaxares is thought to be derived from Persian: Akhuwakhshatra. Depending on the interpretation of Esther 2:5-6, Mordecai or his great-grandfather Kish was carried away from Jerusalem with Jeconiah by Nebuchadnezzar, in 597 B.C.E. The view that it was Mordecai would be consistent with the identification of Ahasuerus with Cyaxares. Identifications with other Persian monarchs have also been suggested.

Narrative reading

Most modern scholars consider the Book of Esther a work of fiction. The name Ahasuerus is seen to be based on Xerxes but the exploits of a real Persian king do not enter into the Book of Esther, which is a fictional tale of palace intrigue, attempted genocide, and a brave Jewish queen. Some have read the story as a parable of quintessentially assimilated Jews who discover that they are targets of anti-Semitism, but are also in a position to save themselves and their fellow Jews. In support of the idea that the story is a fiction, scholars have pointed to the many improbabilities of the story (that Esther is taken from the house of the Jew Mordecai, but is not known to be a Jew; that the edicts of the Medes and Persians cannot be rescinded; that Ahasuerus would agree to kill an entire people without being told their name; that Ahasuerus would give the Jews leave to murder thousands of their enemies) as suggesting that it is a fictional story. They also note that none of the events depicted in Esther are attested from any other source. There is some disagreement about the degree of familiarity the author of Esther shows with its setting in the Persian court - some scholars have used this as evidence for the book's fictionallity, while others have suggested that these background aspects are among the more historically accurate parts of the book.

Allegorical Reading

Some Christian readers consider this story to contain an allegory, representing the interaction between the church as 'bride' and God. This reading is related to the allegorical reading of the Song of Solomon.

Relation To Other Books In the Bible

Esther is (in the Hebrew version) one of only two books of the Bible that do not directly mention God (the other is Song of Songs). It is the only book of the Tanakh that is not represented among the Dead Sea scrolls. It is often been compared to the first half of the Book of Daniel and to the deuterocanonical Books of Tobit and Judith for its subject matter.

Additions to Esther

An additional six chapters appear interspersed in Esther in the Septuagint, the Greek translation, which then was used by Jerome in compiling the Latin Vulgate; additionally, the Greek text contains many small changes in the meaning of the main text. The extra chapters include several prayers to God, perhaps because it was felt that the above-mentioned lack of mention of God was inappropriate in a holy book. Jerome recognized them as later additions, placing them at the end of his work.

By the time Esther was written, the foreign power visible on the horizon as a future threat to Judah was the Macedonians of Alexander the Great, who defeated the Persian empire about 150 years after the time of the story of Esther; the Septuagint version noticeably calls Haman a Macedonian where the Hebrew text describes him as an Agagite.

The canonicity of these Greek additions has been a subject of scholarly disagreement practically since their first appearance in the Septuagint - Martin Luther, being perhaps the most vocal Reformation era critic of the work, considered even the original Hebrew version to be of very doubtful value. Luther's complaints against the book carried past the point of scholarly critique, and led in part to the complaint of anti-semitism frequently made against him. The Roman Catholic Council of Trent, the summation of the Roman Catholic Counter-Reformation, declared the entire book, both Hebrew text and Greek additions, to be canonical. While modern Roman Catholic scholars openly recognize the Greek additions as clearly being additions to the text, the Book of Esther is used twice in commonly used sections of the Catholic Lectionary. In both cases, the text used is not only taken from a Greek addition, the readings also are the prayer of Mordecai, and nothing of Esther's own words is ever used. The Eastern Orthodox Church uses the Septuagint version of Esther, as it does for all of the Old Testament.

Reinterpretations of the story

The classic Hollywood film version of the story is the 1960 Esther and the King starring Joan Collins and Richard Egan and directed by Raoul Walsh.

There are several paintings depicting Esther, including one by Millais.

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

Text and translations

Introduction and analysis

Early 20th century views

Modern scholarship

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