The Book of Esther

Of the many blessings contained within the Old Testament, the blessing of Jer 29:11–14 is one of modern importance for the American church.

For I know the plans that I have planned for you, declares the Lord, peaceful plans and not contentious ones; to give to you a future and hope. And you will pray to me and I will hear you. And you will seek me and you will find me. For you must search for me with all your heart, then I will appear to you…

The importance of this blessing within the modern American church is witnessed by the plethora of Christian paraphernalia, which references Jer 29:11–14 as its inspiration. Two questions, then, stem from meditating on Jer 29:11–14 and the American church’s desire to obtain it: (1) How can one receive the blessing presented in these words, and (2) what does a life devoted to these words look like? The answers to these questions seem to place the modern American church in a somewhat awkward position.

This paper was a finalist in the Intersect Project Ph.D. Student Challenge Symposium. The symposium facilitated broader discussion in the church and academy about the intersection of faith, work, and economics.

These five biblical heroines have many commonalities. This article seeks to examine in detail those commonalities considering these women as variations of a character type: “the woman who fights for YHWH”. The following research is predominantly to clarify the nature and aim of their struggle. Thus we discover that their struggle is directed against the male authorities who have the military power. They bring down the enemy hitting the head. They act with courage and great intelligence. During their fight, they gain ascendancy over male authorities of their own people. At the end of their action, they are celebrated by their people. Finally, through the resistance of these women, the will of YHWH is done. Gradually, striking portraits of five resistance fighters come into view.

Ces cinq héroïnes bibliques présentent de nombreux points communs. Cet article cherche à examiner en détail ces points communs en considérant ces femmes comme autant de variantes d’un personnage type : « la femme qui combat pour YHWH ». Il s’agit avant tout de préciser la nature et la visée de leur combat. Nous découvrons ainsi que leur combat est tourné contre des autorités masculines qui disposent de la puissance guerrière. Elles terrassent l’ennemi en atteignant la tête. Elles agissent avec courage et une très grande intelligence. Au cours de leur combat, elles prennent l’ascendant sur les autorités masculines de leur propre peuple. Au terme de leur action, elles sont célébrées par ce même peuple. Enfin, à travers la résistance de ces femmes, c’est la volonté même de YHWH qui s’accomplit.  Progressivement, ce sont les portraits de cinq résistantes qui se dessinent sous nos yeux.

This paper explores the complicated subject of the identity of the Persian king titled "Ahasuerus" in the Bible and why this author believes a reasonable case can be made for Darius I as this Persian king of 127 provinces.

This paper also looks at the Medo-Persian administrative origins of the word "Artaxerxes" and offers an argument why this title may have been used by the author of the book of Ezra to refer to Persian kings decades before it was chosen as a throne name by the Persian king Logimanus.

Summary:  When the king backs Haman’s decree, Esther is saddled with a difficult mission.  She has been selected as Persia’s replacement queen not only because of her natural beauty, but because of her (apparent) lack of allegiance to a particular people.  Yet Esther soon finds herself required to defend her people--a people who exhibit exactly the kind of insubordination as Vashti did (briefly).  To her credit, Esther succeeds in her mission, which has a number of Messianic overtones.

Keywords:  Esther, Ahasuerus, Haman, Messianic, Jewish tradition, liturgy, Psalm 22.  Date:  Jul. 2019.  Credits:  R. David Fohrman’s The Queen You Thought You Knew.

Originally written for an RTS class on Judges-Esther. I had to rework the paper for length, focusing only on Mordecai and cutting most of the material on Ahasuerus. This is the paper with the additional material added back in, though that material is not expanded upon nor always developed fully. It is a broad brush overview, touching on a number of points, all of which are worthy of further consideration, which I hope to give them at some point.

Summary:  The book of Esther recapitulates the age-old rivalry between Saul and Agag (and, more prototypically, between Jacob and Esau), yet it departs from the story of Saul and Agag at a critical juncture.  At the very moment when Saul starts to get ideas above his station, Esther remains humble.  And so, as Esther’s star continues to rise, Haman’s begins to fall, which is reflected in our text by means of a number of important allusions to the books of Samuel.  Keywords:  Esther, Ruth, Mordecai, Haman, intertextuality, Saul, Esau, Jacob.  Date:  Feb. 2020.

The text of Esther is built around a chiastically-structured plot, the shape of which reflects the reversal of the Jews’ fate and of Haman’s plans.  The text also employs a number of carefully arranged subplots and literary features which serve to frame it as a replay of a previous event in world history.

Keywords:  Esther, Mordecai, Haman, intertextuality, literary structure, literary analysis.  Date:  Jul. 2019.

Esther by Jean Racine  is the flagship of an extensive Christian litterature.  A biblical analysys. Excerpt from The book of Esther, an exegesis by pictures 
La littérature chrétienne  inspirée du Livre d'Esther est dominée par la tragédie de Jean Racine que nous étudions ici du point de vue de l'exégèse religieuse. Extrait de notre ouvrage Le Livre d'Esther, une exégèse en images
BOD 2018 - ISBN : 9782322108527

While the study of feminine bodies and dress, and the ways in these construct categories  such as status and gender has flourished in classical studies for the last thirty years, the theme has received little attention in the context of Jewish corpora from the Hellenistic and early-Roman periods. References to women's dress in the latter literature frequently occurring in ritual context, the present paper discuss two portrayals of lamenting protagonists: Esther in Add Esth C. 13, and the Jewish brides in 3 Macc. 4:6. The detailed analysis of these depictions demonstrate how Jewish works from the Hellenistic and early-Roman period blend together biblical and Greek literary models pertaining to grieving women. Both these texts also exemplify how the posture and attire adopted by female mourners reflect social categories—Jewish identity and piety in the case of Esther and ideals of feminine modesty in the case of the brides.

Esther shares a number of features with the Baal cycle, 1 Samuel 25, 2 Samuel 14, and 1 Kings 1-2. The similarities between these texts are not necessarily the result of direct literary influence or intentional allusion. I argue that these similarities instead stem from a common Levantine literary tradition. All five texts make use of a literary element I term the female intermediary plot-type. Moreover, the Baal cycle, 1 Kings 1-2, and Esther also make use of a particular struggle for power plot-type.

L’étude part du constat que l'analyse iconographique des miniatures dans les manuscrits issus du scriptorium de Cîteaux sous l’abbatiat d’Étienne Harding (1108-1133) est un instrument précieux pour reconstruire la vision du monde et de la société de cet abbé et de sa communauté monastique. L'article se penche tout particulièrement sur la miniature d’Esther et Assuérus dans la Bible dite d’Étienne Harding. De nombreuses comparaisons avec la représentation de la même scène dans d’autres Bibles, ainsi qu’avec d’autres images de rois dans la Bible d’Étienne Harding, font ressortir ses nombreuses spécificités. Ainsi, à côté de l’image d’Esther-Église triomphant sur un dragon, le roi Assuérus est présenté comme un personnage ambigu, hésitant devant le choix à suivre. L’image peut être considérée comme un reflet de la conception des rapports entre Église et le pouvoir royal selon l’abbé et les moines de Cîteaux: leur vision pleinement réformatrice. La miniature peut aussi être lue comme un premier témoignage des rapports tendus entre l’abbaye et le roi de France, qui perdureront tout le long de l’abbatiat d’Étienne Harding : l’examen des sources écrites montre en effet que l’abbaye de Cîteaux était proche des adversaires anglais de Louis VI le Gros. En définitive, l’analyse de cette image fournit un éclairage inattendu sur l’abbaye de Cîteaux, soulignant son rôle actif dans la construction des idéaux de l’époque et son implication dans les conflits politiques contemporains.

Jewish scribes don’t often encounter Roman Catholic nuns.

In a truly interfaith endeavour Sofer STa”M Mordechai Pinchas (Marc Michaels) chronicles the restoration of a several hundred year old manuscript of the book of Esther belonging to the nuns of the Tyburn Convent near Hyde Park. Also read more about the story and see two vidoes - including the BBC World Service radio article at http://www.sofer.co.uk/diary-45

Full book available in paperback and PDF through www.kulmus.co.uk

The Asia Bible Commentary Series empowers Christian believers in Asia to read the Bible from within their respective contexts. Holistic in its approach to the text, each exposition of the biblical books combines exegesis and application. The ultimate goal is to strengthen the Body of Christ in Asia by providing pastoral and contextual exposition of every book of the Bible.
Set in Persia, the book of Esther seems to show little interest in the temple, the Promised Land, prayer or other signs of the Israelite religion. Most peculiarly for a book of the Bible, there is no explicit mention of God! Yet there are many similarities with the setting of Esther and situations in Asia today, which open ways for God to speak into present realities. This commentary examines the book of Esther in its original context, and considers how to interpret and apply it in light of the rest of Scripture – both the Old Testament and the New.

From the back cover:
Jean Rou (1638-1711), was a Huguenot scholar, educator and civil servant. Despite having an established career as a lawyer at the Parlement de Paris, he chose instead to dedicate himself to scholarly publications. After being accused of offending the Catholic Church in his Tables de l’histoire universelle moderne (1675) and consequently imprisoned in the Bastille, Rou had to leave France. Initially, he went to England, where he was employed as a tutor. After a short return to his motherland, where he taught local nobles, he was invited to The Hague, in the United Provinces, to teach the sons of Cornelis van Aerssen van Sommelsdijk, the future governor of Suriname. Finally, in 1689, Jean Rou was appointed as translator of the States-General of the United Provinces.
Based on his memoirs and extensive archival sources, this book offers a biographical study on Jean Rou. It focuses on the means by which he established and managed his career in France and abroad. It also presents a comparative examination of the educational ideas and practices of Jean Rou and his position as a man of letters. Although Jean Rou is in the centre of this book, it offers a fascinating insight into intellectual and social practices of Huguenots at his time from two angles that have been rarely discussed before.

In the present study of I shall demonstrate that the Book of Esther is a high-grade numerical composition, in which the divine name numbers 17  and 26 are woven in different ways into the text to signify the presence of God in the events described in the story. This makes it a genuine religious writing despite the absence of the name of YHWH, as in the Song of Songs and Qoheleth, where God is not visualized onstage but behind the scenes. 
I shall argue in passing that Esther was historically the last to come in on the list of canonized writings, because it came into existence after 70 C.E., the year in  which remnants of the archives in Jerusalem were brought into safety in caves at the Dead Sea.  This explains why there has as yet no trace of the book been found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. Furthermore, Esther is also much more than a story explaining the origin of the Feast of Purim: it deals with the perennial threat of genocide of the Jews and their ultimate survival.

Not only these five heroines confront some warriors who attack their people, but they also resist the male and androcentric strengths which specifically affect women, either to eliminate or to submit them. This aspect of their resistance is implicitly and indirectly presented in the stories in question. This is particularly true for the book of Judith. This paper shows how the narrative suggests that women are negligible in the people of Israel, that only men count, while providing a scathing refutation in the eyes of an informed reader. Against the empire of “men confident in their strength”, the book first pits all the people who beg the Lord, men and women together, and at the very end, Judith and all the women after her. Indeed, in the glory of the victory, the women precede the men.

Non seulement ces cinq héroïnes s’opposent aux guerriers qui s’en prennent à leur peuple, mais elles résistent également aux forces masculines et androcentriques qui portent atteinte plus spécifiquement aux femmes, que ce soit pour les éliminer ou pour les soumettre. Cet aspect de leur résistance est présenté de manière très implicite et indirecte dans les récits en question. C’est particulièrement vrai dans le cas du livre de Judith. Cet article montre comment le récit laisse entendre que les femmes sont négligeables dans le peuple d’Israël, que seuls les hommes comptent, tout en offrant un cinglant démenti aux yeux d’un lecteur averti. À l’empire des « hommes sûrs de leur force », le livre oppose d’abord le peuple de ceux qui supplient le Seigneur, hommes et femmes réunis, et enfin, Judith et toutes les femmes à sa suite. En effet, dans la gloire de la victoire, les femmes précèdent les hommes.

This volume presents a critical edition of the Judaeo-Arabic translation and commentary on the book of Esther by Saadia Gaon (882–942). This edition, accompanied by an introduction and extensively annotated English translation, affords access to the first-known personalized, rationalistic Jewish commentary on this biblical book. Saadia innovatively organizes the biblical narrative—and his commentary thereon—according to seven “guidelines” that provide a practical blueprint by which Israel can live as an abased people under Gentile dominion. Saadia’s prodigious acumen and sense of communal solicitude find vivid expression throughout his commentary in his carefully-defined structural and linguistic analyses, his elucidative references to a broad range of contemporary socio-religious and vocational realia, his anti-Karaite polemics, and his attention to various issues, both psychological and practical, attending Jewish-Gentile conviviality in a 10th-century Islamicate milieu.

The persecutions against the Jews as they are related by Est 3 and Esd 4 throw into light their fundamental relation to the identity of the Alliance people. The oppressors, acknowledged as regards with faith, aim at the remembrance of transcendence in them, in order to destroy or alter it. Thus, the fight against persecution is basically that of the presevervation of the living remembrance of God’s word.

This article identifies an extended, highly complex literary device, here termed a “compound topos”, evident in both Esther and the Greek novel Chaereas and Callirhoe, in which a surpassingly beautiful female outsider arrives at the Persian court and comes to prominence as the romantic rival of the Persian queen. From a theoretical standpoint, the device itself consists of a series of thematic components (topoi) whose meticuIous collocation and arrangement in each text produces a combined effect that surpasses the mere sum of the constituent parts (hence “compound topos”). Seen in this way, the device exhibits both the operational principles of the type-scene and the scope and complexity of  a compositional artifice, thus bridging the oral and the written realms.

Here, the specific compound topos in question is examined by way of an articulation of the various major elements of which it is constituted, and of the literary force achieved by each text’s distinctive combination of these elements. Rounding out this study is a discussion of the socio-historical significance of the compound topos’s  attestation in these two particular works, with special attention devoted to the import of this device as a discrete indicator of the relationship between Esther and the Hellenistic literary sphere.

An exploration of the Jewish blessing over royalty, inspired by a personal encounter with Queen Elizabeth II and King Harald V.  The first in (hopefully, b'ezrat Hashem) a series of practical adventures in halachah from Kulmus Publishing.  If anyone is interested in publishing this in a journal or magazine, please contact me.