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Profile:
Name: Book of Esther (Hebrew: rtsa, "star")
Author: unknown
Dates: final form created in late 2nd century BCE
Book of Esther:
The book of Esther purports to explain the origin of the Jewish celebration of Purim,
possibly in the early 5th century BCE. In this book, Esther (Hadassah in Hebrew) and
her cousin Mordecai save the Jews living in the Persian empire from being destroyed.
The book itself may have been written as late as the 2nd century BCE, although it
contains traditions which go back well beyond that.
According to the story, Esther was made a part of the harem of Ahasuerus (Achashverosh), King of Persia, who did not know she was a Jew - she hid her nationality on the advice of her cousin Mordecai. Haman, an advisor to the king, is portrayed as the villain right from the beginning. Haman's motivation was that Mordecai refused to bow to Haman - so, he sought to destroy the entire Jewish people for this one offense. Haman tricked Ahasuerus to allow Haman to do as he wanted with all Jews, but Esther risked her life to convince Ahasuerus to change his mind. Instead of allowing the Jews to be killed, Ahasuerus had Haman killed.
It is worth noting that this story is unusual in the canon in that God makes absolutely no appearance. God does not come along to save anyone - instead, the Jewish people are saved by entirely human actions. In part because of this, Jewish theologians debated long and hard about whether or not this book should even be included with the others, with the final acceptance not occurring until the 4th century CE.
The primary attempts to explain the absence of God in the story have included the argument that God is really there, but hidden - this is known as hester panim, the hidden face of God. Thus, when God is there, then God is there. But, when there is no sign of God, then God is really there but only making it look like we are affecting our lives.
Although there is no evidence that the events described in Esther really happened, some try to locate them during the reign of Xerxes II (485-465 B.C.E.) or Ataxerxes II (403-358 B.C.E.), both of whom have been identified as Ahasuerus.
Also Known As: none
Alternate Spellings: none
Common Misspellings: none
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