Book of Esther
Esther's cousin Mordecai, who is a Jewish leader, discovers a plot to kill all of the Jews in the empire by Haman, one of the king's advisors.
The book is at the center of the Jewish festival of Purim and is read aloud twice from a handwritten scroll, usually in a synagogue, during the holiday: once in the evening and again the following morning.
In his Historia Scholastica Petrus Comestor identified Ahasuerus (Esther 1:1) as Artaxerxes III (358–338 BCE) who reconquered Egypt.
The book's theme, rather, is the reversal of destiny through a sudden and unexpected turn of events: the Jews seem destined to be destroyed, but instead are saved.
On the seventh day of the latter banquet, Ahasuerus orders the queen, Vashti, to display her beauty before the guests by coming before them wearing her crown (1:10–11).
He obtains Ahasuerus' permission to execute this plan, against payment of ten thousand talents of silver, and casts lots ("purim") to choose the date on which to do this – the thirteenth of the month of Adar (3:7–12).
Unable to annul a formal royal decree, the King instead adds to it, permitting the Jews to join and destroy any and all of those seeking to kill them (8:1–14).
Mordecai and Esther send letters throughout the provinces instituting an annual commemoration of the Jewish people's redemption, in a holiday called Purim (lots) (9:20–28).
[24][22] The apparent historical difficulties, the internal inconsistencies, the pronounced symmetry of themes and events, the plenitude of quoted dialogue, and the gross exaggeration in the reporting of numbers (involving time, money, and people) all point to Esther as a work of fiction, its vivid characters (except for Xerxes) being the product of the author's creative imagination.
Purim practices like eating “Haman's ears”, ear-shaped loaves of bread or pieces of pastry are similar to those in Near Eastern ritual celebrations of Ishtar's cosmic victory.
[30] Likewise other elements in Purim customs such as making a racket with a ratchet, masquerading and drunkenness have all been adduced to propose that such a kind of pagan festival akin to rites associated with Ishtar of Nineveh, which shares these same features, lay behind the development of this story.
[31] Biblical scholar Michael Coogan further argues that the book contains specific details regarding certain subject matter (for example, Persian rule) which are historically inaccurate.
[39] The story told in the book of Esther takes place during the rule of Ahasuerus, who amongst others has been identified as the 5th-century Persian king Xerxes I (reigned 486–465 BCE).
He makes no reference to individual members of the harem except for a domineering Queen consort named Amestris, whose father, Otanes, was one of Xerxes's generals.
Jacob Hoschander has argued that the name of Haman and that of his father Hamedatha are mentioned by Strabo as Omanus and Anadatus, worshipped with Anahita in the city of Zela.
[43] Strabo's names are unattested in Persian texts as gods; however the Talmud[44] and Josephus[45] interpret the description of courtiers bowing to Haman in Esther 3:2 as worship.
[10] In the Book of Esther, the Tetragrammaton does not appear, but some argue it is present, in hidden form, in four complex acrostics in Hebrew: the initial or last letters of four consecutive words, either forwards or backwards comprise YHWH.
God, in fact, is not mentioned, Esther is portrayed as assimilated to Persian culture, and Jewish identity in the book is an ethnic category rather than a religious one.
However, this miracle was in a hidden form, occurring through apparently natural processes, not like the Exodus from Egypt, which openly revealed the might of God.
"[51] This follows the approach of the Talmud,[52] which states that "(The Book of) Esther is referenced in the Torah in the verse 'And I shall surely hide (in Hebrew, 'haster astir,' related to 'Esther') My Face from them on that day.
[53] André Lacocque also sees the Book of Esther as being fundamentally theological and that its main message was to correct the mistakes of ancestors.
[54] Although marriages between Jews and Gentiles are not permitted in orthodox Judaism, even in case of Pikuach nefesh, Esther is not regarded as a sinner, because she remained passive, and risked her life to save that of the entire Jewish people.
Pajand justified his interpretation to dispel accusations that the Book of Esther was anti-Iranian and because he believed that Iranians were "travellers in the way of truth".
[56] Lacocque likewise observes that the "enemies of the Jews" were never arbitrarily branded as Amalekites before being killed, in comparison to Haman and his sons, which discredits any motive of Jewish ultranationalism.
[60] Matthew Poole sees the subsequent hanging of Haman's sons as a cruel Jewish and Persian custom that punishes offenders for 'abusing' the king.
In his research, Neugroschel noticed that ten Nazi defendants in the Nuremberg Trials were executed by hanging on 16 October 1946, which was the date of the final judgement day of Judaism, Hoshana Rabbah.
Additionally, Hermann Göring, an eleventh Nazi official sentenced to death, committed suicide, parallel to Haman's daughter in Tractate Megillah.
[68] By the time the Greek version of Esther was written, the foreign power visible on the horizon as a future threat to Judah was the kingdom of Macedonia under 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 "Bougaion" (Ancient Greek: βουγαῖον), possibly in the Homeric sense of "bully" or "braggart",[69] whereas the Hebrew text describes him as an Agagite.
– 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.
[71] The Council of Trent, the summation of the Counter-Reformation, reconfirmed the entire book,[72] both Hebrew text and Greek additions, as canonical.
