Eight Questions Most Frequently Asked About the Book of Esther

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Few books of the Hebrew Bible have generated more controversy among both Jews and Christians than the Book of Esther. It has been praised and damned, loved and rejected, all by good, God-fearing people. As the result of my studies of this controversial book over the years,¹ I would like to discuss eight frequently asked questions about it.

1. Is the story true? Did it really happen?

Somehow the story seems improbable, more like fiction—a novella—than a historical account. On the other hand, there’s nothing impossible about it. Unlike many biblical books, there is nothing miraculous or supernatural in it.

The story is set in the time of the great Persian king Xerxes (Ahasuerus, in Hebrew),^a who reigned between 486 and 465 B.C. It takes place in the Persian capital of Susa.

During a lavish, days-long stag party, Xerxes orders Queen Vashti to appear before him so he can show off her beauty to his guests. When Vashti refuses this degrading request, Xerxes promptly deposes her, as a lesson to other wives—women are to show respect to their husbands! (chapter 1).

Xerxes then launches a full-scale search for a suitable replacement Among the many beautiful maidens brought to the king’s bed—but only after a year’s elaborate beauty treatment—is Esther (or Hadassah), the niece and adopted daughter of Mordecai ben Jair, a Jew who sits at the King’s Gate. Eventually Esther is chosen as the new queen; somehow, Esther manages to keep her Jewish identity a secret from everyone, even after she becomes queen.

Later, her uncle Mordecai learns of a plot against the king by two of his bodyguards. He informs Esther who in turn informs the king in Mordecai’s name. The plot is foiled. Although Mordecai’s saving act is duly noted in the king’s daily record, it goes unrewarded at the time (chapter 2).

Then enters Haman, the king’s bloated prime minister and an Agagite. He is furious when he learns that Mordecai will not show him proper respect by bowing down to him. Haman persuades the king to permit a pogrom of the people (not otherwise identified) who have been such an obstacle to his plans for the empire. An edict is sent throughout the empire, declaring that all Jews—including women and children!—are to be killed and their property looted on the 13th day of Adar—that particular day having been chosen by lot (Babylonian, puÆr).

Mordecai persuades Esther to risk immediate death by appearing unsummoned before the king to intercede for her people (chapters 3–4). Although Esther thus breaks the law by appearing unsummoned before the king, he receives her warmly. Instead of immediately explaining her mission, Esther invites the king and Haman to attend a small dinner party just for the three of them. At the dinner, the king promises to grant Esther any wish; Esther asks only that he and Haman attend a similar party the next day.

On his way home, Haman is again infuriated to see Mordecai acting as if nothing terrible had happened—and still refusing to bow down to him! When Haman arrives home, his wife suggests that he ask the king’s permission to hang Mordecai. Haman leaps at the idea and immediately erects a 75-foot gallows outside his home (chapter 5).

Unable to sleep that night, Xerxes has the court records read to him and is thus reminded that Mordecai had saved his life by informing the king of the bodyguards’ plot and yet has gone unrewarded. Xerxes then asks Haman what the king should do for someone he wants to honor. Haman, thinking that the king has him in mind, recommends that a high official should parade the honored man, clothed in the king’s robe and riding on a royal horse, while the high official calls attention to the honoree’s royal treatment. To 019Haman’s chagrin, the king tells Haman that Haman, personally, must do all this for Mordecai! (chapter 6)

During Esther’s second dinner party later that day, she reveals to the king that, “thanks” to Haman, she, along with her equally innocent people, is about to be annihilated. Shocked by her disclosure, Xerxes bolts from the room, only to return a few seconds later to find Haman, “pawing” the queen, begging her to intercede for him. The king immediately sentences Haman death—he is to be hanged on the very gallows he had prepared for Mordecai (chapter 7).

Once Esther reveals to the king her relationship to Mordecai, Xerxes appoints him to Haman’s post and gives Esther Haman’s estate, and she in turn gives it to Mordecai.

However, the edict authorizing the pogrom against the Jews cannot be revoked, so the king does the next best thing: He allows Mordecai to draft a new edict that allows the Jews to defend themselves and even encourages others to help them. A number of gentiles do exactly that. Some even convert to Judaism (chapter 8).

On Adar 13, the appointed day, 75,000 enemies of the Jews are killed throughout the empire, as well as 510 in Susa. Among those killed in Susa are Haman’s ten sons. Although granted specific permission to plunder, the Jews take no spoil.

Soon after, Mordecai and Queen Esther decree that their story be commemorated as a festival to, be observed forever by all Jews and to be known as the festival of Purim. (The name is based on the fact that, earlier, Haman had cast “lots” (from Babylonian, puÆr) to determine the propitious day for the destruction of the Jews (chapter 9).

Thus the Jews were saved by Queen Esther; and in his position as prime minister, Mordecai continues to serve effectively both his king and his people (chapter 10).

The story, in the Hebrew at least, is well told. Its plot is relatively simple, and its denouement sudden. The storyteller places his emphasis more on action and dramatic effect than on the development of his characters.

Apart from a few improbable details or embellishments,^b the story seems believable enough. It is a story of court intrigue and ethnic prejudices.

Moreover, the storyteller knew a lot about the time, place and setting for his tale. The rousing drinking parties with magnificent goblets (1:5–8), the seven princely advisers to the king (1:14), very efficient postal system (3:13; 8:10)—these and other “details of fact” have been attested Persia at this time by a number of ancient 020classical writers. And the narrator of the tale is obviously familiar with Persian terms; he uses a number of them, like the Persian words for nobles, kiosk, law, decree, satrapies, etc.²

The characterization of Xerxes, the only indisputably historical figure in the story, seems reasonably compatible with what is known about him from non-biblical sources.³

While archaeological excavations at Susa itself have not confirmed the various architectural features alluded to in Esther,⁴ discoveries elsewhere, especially in the palace of Darius and Xerxes at Persepolis, have provided us a very clear idea of the lavish Achaemenid royal buildings, their monumental ornamentation and their amazingly varied building materials.⁵

Other archaeological discoveries have cast additional light on heretofore obscure Persian practices and objects. The text of Esther refers to year-long beauty treatment taken by all the virginal candidates for the queenship (Esther 2:12). William F. Albright⁶ has shown, on the basis of a cosmetic burner from the period when the story of Esther was supposed to have taken place, that this probably involved six months of cosmetic “fumigation.” Long ago, women like Esther—and like the seminomadic women of the eastern Sudan who continued the practice into modern times—fumigated themselves by saturating their skin, pores and hair with the aromatic fumes from cosmetic burners.⁷

When the author of Esther alluded to Haman’s casting the puÆr, or lot (Hebrew, qwrl; Esther 3:7), to determine the propitious day for destroying the Jews, he probably had in mind one of the many types of lots from the period discovered by archaeologists.⁸

But in spite of all the literary and archaeological evidence that illuminates the Esther story, most modern scholars do not believe the tale reflects actual history. One reason for this is that some of the details in the story contradict extra-biblical sources whose basic accuracy is not suspect. For example, according to Herodotus, the fifth-century B.C. Greek historian,⁹ Amestris, not Esther, was queen to Xerxes between the seventh and twelfth years of his reign; moreover, Persian queens had to come from one of seven noble Persian families. On both counts, Esther would have to be ruled out as queen. Also according to Herodotus, the Persian empire had 20 satrapies, not 127, as the author of Esther maintains (Esther 1:1). According to Herodotus, in the seventh year of Xerxes’ reign (when, according to Esther 2:16, Esther was taken to the king’s bed) Xerxes was still away fighting in Greece.¹⁰

Taken individually, these contradictions may not seem sufficiently serious to undermine the essential historicity of Esther, because errors in detail can easily occur in an essentially true historical account. Together, they may have more weight.

Ultimately, however, those scholars who reject the historicity of the story do so on the basis of literary considerations and the improbabilities of the story—from Vashti’s refusal to obey the king’s command to the king’s granting permission—a year ahead of time (Esther 3:12–13)—to slaughter an entire people within his empire, to the elevation of an ordinary Jewish girl to be queen of Persia, to the appointment of a non-Persian, Mordecai, to be prime minister.

Literary critics have shown that the primary motif of the book is feasting and that its four basic literary themes are power, loyalty to God and Israel, inviolability of the Jewish people and sudden reversal of situations (or peripety, to use the rhetorical term).¹¹

Neither side in this debate about the historicity of the story can prove its case with certainty, and each reader must weigh the evidence for himself or herself.

Perhaps, and that is another reason scholars sometimes cite in arguing against the book’s historicity.

2. Aren’t the names of the heroine and hero, Esther and Mordercai, derived from the names of pagan gods?

As early as the late 19th century, some scholars maintained that the name Mordecai should be equated with the Babylonian god Marduk, and Esther should be equated with the Babylonian goddess Ishtar.

Moreover, Haman, it was argued, should be identified with the Elamite god Humman, and Vashti with the Elamite goddess Mashti.

The Book of Esther, these scholars argued,¹² represents the historization of a myth or myths.

Fragments of these myths were purportedly found in such Babylonian mythological accounts the Gilgamesh Epic, the Tammuz-Ishtar myth and Enuma Elish (the Babylonian creation myth).¹³

Based on these name associations as well as other evidence, one scholar¹⁴ has argued that there is a historical case, or at least a historical basis, for the Esther story, but that it goes back a conflict at Susa between Mardukians (that is, worshippers of Marduk [Mordecai] and Ishtar 020[Esther]) and the Bagaians (devotees of the god Mithra)¹⁵ in the days of Artaxerxes 2 (405–358 B.C.), who is the king in the Septuagint (i.e., the Greek version of the story of the Book of Esther).

The case for the Esther = Ishtar equation is not quite as strong as the Mordecai = Marduk equation; “Esther” (Hebrew, ’str) may relate to the name “Ishtar,” the Babylonian goddess of love and war, but it may as easily represent the Persian staÆra (meaning “star”).

The name “Mordecai” is clearly theophorous (based on the name of a god). But so is the American name Martin. Yet parents who name their sons Martin certainly have no intention of honoring the Roman god of war, Mars.¹⁶

Incidentally, the authenticity of the name Mordecai has been confirmed by archaeological evidence, and is indeed well attested. It appears in an Aramaic letter of the fifth century B.C. as Mrdk¹⁷ and in three variant syllabic spellings on the cuneiform Treasury Tablets found at Persepolis.¹⁸ And an accountant named MardukaÆ visited Susa in either the last days of Darius or the first years of Xerxes.¹⁹ So it could be argued that the name Mordecai supports—or is at least consistent with—the historicity of the story. (In addition, the name of one of Haman’s sons has also been attested archaeologically. The name “Pharshandatha” [Hebrew, Prsûndt’; Esther 9:7], occurs as Prsûndt on an Achaemenid cylinder seal of the fifth century B.C.)²⁰

3. Is the festival of Purim based on a pagan festival?

In a sense, yes; and that is another element in the argument that the Book of Esther represents the historization of a pagan myth, rather than actual history.

The origin of Purim, which celebrates the Jews’ delivery from Haman’s genocide plan, is still observed annually by Jews, at which time the Book of Esther, or megillah (scroll) as it is called, is read in the synagogue. Yet, like the great Christian festivals of Easter and Christmas,^c Purim contains pagan elements, if not a pagan origin. Somewhere, somehow, a pagan festival was adopted and adapted to its present status. The scholars who have spearheaded this research claim to have found the pagan prototype for Purim in the Persian New Year festivals. Purim’s pagan (i.e., Babylonian) name certainly suggests pagan or non-Jewish origin.²¹

4. Is Esther the only book of the Bible that does not mention the name of God?

Yahweh, the personal name of the Hebrew God, does not appear in the Book of Esther. Esther is one of three biblical books in which it does not appear. Moreover, even the more generic name for God, Elohim, is absent from the Book of Esther. Esther and the Song of Songs are the only books of the Bible in which it does not appear.

This, too, it is claimed, suggests a story Persian origin somehow adapted by the Jews for their own didactic purposes.

By contrast, the Persian king is mentioned 190 times in 167 verses.

Not only is the name of God absent from the Book of Esther, but so are such basic themes and institutions of the Hebrew Bible as law, covenant, prayer, temple, and dietary laws (kashrut).²²

Despite the absence of explicitly religious elements in the story, however, it may nevertheless be understood as a profoundly religious book. As one scholar, David J. A Clines, has argued:²³

“It is not so much the absence of the name of God from the book as the presence in it of critical coincidences working for the good of the Jewish people that defines its theological position. I would identify two primary elements in the book’s theological statements: (i) the providence of God is to be relied on to reverse the ill-fortunes of Israel; (ii) divine action and human initiative are complementary and both [are] indispensable for success or ‘salvation.’ ”

Although the name of God is not explicitly mentioned, it is surely alluded to. When Mordecai informs Queen Esther of Haman’s plot to exterminate the Jews and asks her to intercede to save her people (Esther 4:8), she at first seems to hesitate: To appear before the king unsummoned risks death. Mordecai then tells her that she should not suppose that just because she is in the king’s house, she will be exempt from Haman’s evil decree. Moreover, if she fails to help at a time like this “deliverance for the Jews will appear from another quarter (makoÆm)” (Esther 4:14a). MakoÆm, “from another quarter or another place,” is surely an allusion to God.

Mordecai’s faith in God’s providential care is clearly expressed in his admonition to Esther: “It’s 028possible that you came to the throne for just such a time as this” (4:14b).

That Esther is a religious book, despite the absence of God’s name, is also confirmed by the fact that Esther orders Mordecai and her countrymen to fast for her before she risks her own life by going to the king unsummoned to intercede for her people. To fast for her means to pray for her, for in the Old Testament, prayer routinely accompanied fasting²⁴ (As for the residual risk, Esther was prepared to accept it: “And if I perish, I perish” [4:16].)

To the secular mind, the Book of Esther is filled with lucky coincidences: Esther’s becoming queen (2:17), Mordecai’s saving the king’s life (2:21–23), the king’s sleeplessness resulting in his being reminded of Mordecai’s discovery of the plot to kill the king (6:1–2), Haman’s asking the king for permission to hang Mordecai (6:4–10), etc. To the religious consciousness, however, the hand of God is seen at work here. God isn’t mentioned in the Esther drama, but he is clearly working behind the scenes, setting the stage and directing the players.

One other point about the absence of God’s name in the Book of Esther: Maybe it was there in an earlier version of the text and was taken out in the so-called proto-Masoretic period, before the text of the Hebrew Bible known as the Masoretic text was fixed in its present form in about the tenth century A.D. In the Mishnaic discussion^d of the joyous, almost abandoned way in which Jews should celebrate the festival of Purim, the Mishnah records a ruling that Jews are to drink so much on Purim that they cannot distinguish between “Blessed be Mordecai!” and “Cursed be Haman!” (Megillah 7b). It is the one time in the year Jews are admonished to get drunk. This ruling alone may explain the absence of sacred elements from the version of the story that has come down to us in the Hebrew Bible. A later editor may have removed all religious elements lest, when the story was being told, they be profaned by drunken revelers.²⁵

5. Isn’t the story immoral? Doesn’t the festival of Purim commemorate the massacre of innocent women and children?

Certainly many critics have claimed that. More than one scholar has opined that Queen Vashti, who refused to appear before King Xerxes and was deposed for her refusal, is the only decent person in the story. The other major characters are deceitful and cruel, their hands full of blood. Vashti at least had the good sense—and decency—not to degrade herself by appearing before a bunch of drunken, reveling men. (Some ancient Jewish exegetes interpreted Esther 1:11—where we are told that Vashti was ordered to appear “wearing the royal turban”— to mean that she was to appear in only her royal turban, i.e., naked!)

Ingenious efforts have been made to explain away the embarrassing fact that 75, 000 people, including innocent women and children, were massacred on Adar 13, the date Haman fixed for the massacre of the Jews (Esther 9:16). Recently Robert Gordis²⁶ has argued that, contrary to over 2, 000 years of universal agreement on the matter, Mordecai’s royal edict in Esther 8:11 did not grant Jews permission to kill innocent noncombatants. Rather, the phrase “along with their women and children” in 8:11 referred to the Jews’ women and children, not their enemies’.^e

While such an explanation is perhaps comforting, in that it eliminates a vengeful and vindictive phrase incompatible with Judaism, Gordis’s interpretation is probably not correct. For one thing, the destruction of enemy men, women and children is perfectly consistent with the principle of peripety, the sudden reversal that appears as a basic rhetorical theme throughout the entire book.²⁷ In Esther 3:13 Haman’s decree permitted the annihilation of “all the Jews—men and boys, women and children.” The sudden reversal occurs in Esther 8:11, where the Jews are given permission “to defend themselves” by slaughtering their enemies, “those who were hostile to them, along with their women and children.” It seems unlikely that the last phrase refers to Jewish women and children who may defend themselves against their enemies.

The author of Esther, like many a modern person, would probably argue that Haman had initiated an all-out war of extermination against the Jews, a Holocaust if you will, that demanded an exceedingly strong response. From time immemorial, when it comes to a nation’s or a people’s survival, winning is evidently everything. While some philosophers and theologians may decry the axiom “All’s fair in love and war,” the 029historian knows and the average person suspects that, for better or worse, mankind has nearly always played by that rule. The Allied bombing of Dresden or the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki is now perceived by many Americans as an immoral act—now that we have the luxury of reexamining our conduct in a war we long ago won. While both Judaism and Christianity certainly decry murder and assassination, I suspect that many decent, law-abiding Jews and Christians devoutly wish that the foiled assassination plot against Hitler had succeeded.

But when all is said and done, many Jews are probably as embarrassed by the vengeful, blood-thirsty, measure-for-measure retaliation of Esther 8:11 and 9:16 as Christians are embarrassed by the cry of the Crusaders who, on attacking a certain “infidel” city containing “innocent” Christians, cried, “Kill them all! God knows his own!” In any event, the festival of Purim celebrates not so much the destruction of the enemy as the deliverance of the Jews (Esther 9:21–22), an important distinction to remember.

6. How did the Book of Esther manage to get into the Bible?

It probably wasn’t easy, for the book has been controversial from the beginning.

Apparently, the Book of Esther was not acceptable to the Jews who collected the famous Dead Sea Scrolls in their library at Qumran (c. 150 B.C.–68 A.D.) on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea. At least fragments of every book of the Old Testament except Esther have been found at Qumran. Moreover, the festival of Purim, the raison d’eÆtre of the Book of Esther, was not part of the liturgical calendar observed at Qumran. So it may well be that the Book of Esther was not considered part of their Bible.

Moreover there is no evidence that the Book of Esther was accepted as canonical by the Jewish Academy of Jabneh (the Council of Jamnia), which considered the content of the Jewish canon about 90 A.D.²⁸

Although there is evidence that it was considered part of the Jewish canon by the rabbis of the Academy of Ousha²⁹ in about 140 A.D. and by other rabbis in about 200 A.D.,³⁰ there were rabbis in the third century A.D.³¹ and possibly even in the early fourth century³² who were still contesting its canonicity.

By contrast, the great Jewish scholar Maimonides (1135–1204 A.D.) ranked Esther as second only to the Five Books of Moses. And among extant medieval manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible, copies of the megillah are especially common, thereby attesting to the book’s great popularity among Jews.

Nevertheless, Esther continues to have its Jewish critics, even today. The Israeli exegete S. Ben-Chorin³³ advocated abandoning the book and the festival of Purim. The American Rabbi Samuel Sandmel confessed that he would “not be grieved if the Book of Esther were somehow dropped out of Scripture.”³⁴

Given the book’s mixed reviews among Jews, we shouldn’t be surprised to learn that Christians have reacted much the same way. While the Church Fathers in the West seem to have accepted the book as canonical, a number of Eastern Church Fathers excluded Esther from the canon.³⁵

The view of Martin Luther (1483–1546) is well known and oft-quoted: “I am so hostile to this book [2 Maccabees] and to Esther that I could wish that they did not exist at all; for they judaize too greatly and have much pagan impropriety” (Table Talks).

7. Is there even more than one version of Esther?

Yes, the Greek edition of Esther was translated for the Jewish community of Alexandria sometime between 114 and 78 B.C. and is part of the Septuagint. It differs very significantly from the received Hebrew text (the Masoretic text).

For one thing, the Septuagint (LXX) contains six major passages, consisting, of 107 verses, not found in the Masoretic text (MT). Scholars refer to these additions as Adds A, B, C, D, E and F. Because these Adds are not in the Hebrew text, Jerome relegated them to the end of the book in his Latin translation of the Bible known as the Vulgate. In the Vulgate these Adds constitute Esther 11–16. At the time of the Reformation, these Adds were stamped as apocryphal and were rejected from the Protestant canon. However, Roman Catholics, at the Council of Trent in 1546, reaffirmed the canonicity of the Adds, and therefore they continue to be part of the Catholic Bible as chapters 11 through 16.

What do the Adds add?

A dream of Mordecai’s in which the events of the story are foreshadowed (Add A); the king’s edict, dictated by Haman, authorizing the 030extermination of the Jews (Add B); a prayer of Mordecai and of Esther (Add C); an account of Esther’s appearance before the king (Add D); the king’s edict, dictated by Mordecai, counteracting Haman’s edict against the Jews (Add E); and an interpretation of Mordecai’s dream recounted in Add A in which the various details of the dream are explained (Add F).

To complicate the textual problems of Esther still further, there are two very different Greek versions of Esther.³⁶ In addition to the Septuagint version, there is the so-called Lucianic recension. These two Greek versions both contain the Adds, but they are different from one another in other respects. The Lucianic recension is a translation of a Hebrew text that is quite different at some points both from the Hebrew text presupposed by the Septuagint and by the Hebrew text ancestral to the received text. The Septuagint translation is a “literary” translation; it translates freely rather than literally, sometimes to the point of being paraphrastic. The translator preserved the content but not the exact wording of the Hebrew text. The Lucianic recension is shorter and omits passages found in the Septuagint.

While Jerome’s Vulgate collected the Adds at the end of the book, as chapters 11 through 16, the Septuagint and Lucianic texts preserve the Adds in their original position, so that we know from where, within the text, they were taken.

In the Adds, Esther comes through as a more religious person than in the Masoretic text; her character and personality are more fully developed in the Adds; she is less two-dimensional than in the Hebrew account. For instance, not only does Esther acknowledge in her prayer her great fear and trepidation at the thought of approaching the king unannounced,³⁷ but when she actually appears before him, “her heart was pounding with fear” (Add D:5b); and as the king “looked at her in fiercest anger, the queen stumbled, turned pale and fainted, keeling over on the maid who went before her” (Add D:7). As the king holds her in his arms, she is revived and says to him, “My Lord, I saw you like an angel of God, and I was upset by your awesome appearance. For you are wonderful, my lord, and your face is full of graciousness” (Add D:13). All this is in sharp contast to Esther 5:1–2 of the Hebrew text, where the Queen appears calm, cool and collected.

On the other hand, the Adds transform what is essentially a story of court intrigue or ethnic rivalry into a universal antagonism between Jew and gentile. In Mordecai’s dream, “two great dragons” contend, “every nation got itself ready for battle that it might fight against the righteous nation, and a “mighty river arose” (Add A:4–8). This is explained in Add F:3–8 as symbolizing Mordecai and Haman (the two great dragons), all the gentile nations and Israel (the nations who prepare to fight the righteous nation) and Queen Esther (a mighty river). What in the Hebrew text had been a struggle between Mordecai and Haman becomes in the Greek—by virtue of the Adds—a universal and cosmic struggle where all gentiles are enemies of the Jews. Small wonder the Jews of antiquity rejected the Esther version with the Adds.³⁸

Finally, in the Greek version, the king’s attitude toward the unannounced Esther constitutes the climax: “Raising his face, flushed with color, the king looked at her in fiercest anger. … But God changed the king’s spirit to gentleness” (Add D:7a, 8:a).³⁹ The Hebrew text, on the other hand, emphasizes the establishment of Purim, which, according to chapter 9 of the Hebrew text, is the raison d’eÆtre of the entire story. Not surprisingly, the Church Fathers, who knew the Greek version or the Latin Vulgate, rather than the Hebrew account, also stressed Esther’s courage or God’s miracle in changing the king’s response from anger to gentleness, rather than the establishment of Purim, a Jewish festival not adopted by the Christian church.

8. I’ve heard that the story of Esther is patterned on the story of Moses and Exodus. Is this correct?

That’s what Gillis Gerleman of Germany has argued; and if he’s right, that is another reason to question the historicity of the story. Gerleman contends that:⁴⁰ “All the essential features of the Esther narrative are already there in Exodus 1–12: the foreign court Egypt], the mortal threat [Pharaoh’s decree that all male Hebrew children are to be killed], the deliverance [the plagues and passing through the Red Sea], the revenge [the ten plagues] the triumph [the drowning of the Egyptians], and the establishment of a festival [Passover].”

According to Gerleman, not only were the plot and central theme of Esther patterned after the Exodus narrative, but even its details were. Thus, Esther (like Moses) was an adopted child who concealed her Jewish identity. Esther (like Moses) was at first reluctant to intercede for her people, and approached the king several times. As Moses was responsible for the death of many of his people’s enemies, so was Esther. As Moses had 031great trouble with the Amalekites (Exodus 17:8–26), so did Esther—Haman was an Agagite (Esther 3:1), a descendant of Agag the Amalekite (1 Samuel 15:8), These are but a few of the details, in Esther that, according to Gerleman, were patterned after the Exodus narrative.

Thus far, Gerleman’s thesis has gained little scholarly support.⁴¹

The consensus of scholars seems to be that while there may be a core of historicity to the Esther story (that is there may have been an Esther/Hadassah who on some occasion saved her people, and an unrelated story of court intrigue featuring a Mordecai), the plot and its details were prompted by literary considerations rather than by the Exodus narrative, as suggested by Gerleman.

If the Book of Esther does have a kernel of truth then kernel like a grain of sand in an oyster shell, has been covered over by layer upon layer of lustrous material.

18 Few books of the Hebrew Bible have generated more controversy among both Jews and Christians than the Book of Esther. It has been praised and damned, loved and rejected, all by good, God-fearing people. As the result of my studies of this controversial book over the years,1 I would like to discuss eight frequently asked questions about it. 1. Is the story true? Did it really happen? Somehow the story seems improbable, more like fiction—a novella—than a historical account. On the other hand, there’s nothing impossible about it. Unlike many biblical books, there is nothing miraculous or supernatural […]