There is little doubt that in a general way the Book of Esther reflects the historical circumstances of the Persian era.74Several descriptions of customs and administration in the Persian empire as well as quite a number of Babylonian and Persian loan-words lend a feeling of authenticity to the Book of Esther.75In contrast to other late books, Greek loan-words are absent – which argues for a date not too far removed from Persian era. However, the number of inconsistencies with the details of Persian history is so great that the author must have lived far removed from the time and places described.76 The Book of Esther is a masterful work of literary fiction, not an accurate historical record.
It creates a first impression of unbelievable and, certainly to
71Cf. S.P. Vleeming, J.W. Wesselius, Studies in Papyrus Amherst 63, 2 vols, Amsterdam 1985-1990.
72TAD B2.6; B3.3; B3.8.
73Marsman, Women in Ugarit and Israel, 188.
74Grabbe, Judaism from Cyrus to Hadrian, vol. 1, 51-2.
75Cf. M. Ellenbogen, Foreign Words in the Old Testament: Their Origin and Etymology, London 1962, 175; E.M. Yamauchi, ‘Mordecai, the Persepolis Tablets, and the Susa Excavations’, VT 42 (1992), 272-4; P.V. Mankowksi, Akkadian Loanwords in Biblical Hebrew (HSS, 47), Winona Lake 2000, 225.
76Cf. (e.g.) J.A. Loader, Das Buch Ester (ATD, 16/2), G¨ottingen 1992, 207-9; J.D. Levenson, Esther: A Commentary (OTL), Louisville 1997, 23-7; K.H. Jobes, Esther (The NIV Application Commentary), Grand Rapids 1999, 31.
modern Western readers, unacceptable cruelty. This and the ab-sence of any open reference to God have often given rise to de-preciating remarks about the book’s religious value. The common way to avoid this is to point out that Esther is part of the Hebrew canon. Therefore we should read the book within the context of the canonised literary heritage of ancient Israel, constantly look-ing for intertextual links with other parts of the Hebrew canon.77 Since it is clear that the Book of Esther itself presupposes know-ledge of other parts of the canon this is certainly a legitimate approach. However, the dubious canonical status of the book – it is not present among the biblical books at Qumran78 – weakens the force of this type of argument.
Moreover, when it comes to defining the specific theological thrust of the Book of Esther,79 most authors confine themselves to stating that its purpose is to stress God’s hidden protection of Israel. But why would God be hiding, whereas He is prominently present in all other biblical books describing his mighty acts of deliverance in the past? If so, it would make God all the more responsible both for endangering the Jewish people and for the massacre among the Persians.
In a different context I have recently defended the thesis that Esther is a book that avoids mentioning God deliberately be-cause it ascribes to him gross injustice, especially by allowing the disastrous outcome of the casting of lots which might have meant the total annihilation of all Jews in the Persian empire.80 According to all religions of the ancient Near East, casting lots was an act by which people left a decision to the deity. It was the deity – according to the monotheistic Jews, undoubtedly their own God (cf. Prov. 16:33) – who decided to give permission for their annihilation. It is an undue mitigation of this terrible truth
77So (e.g.) B.S. Childs, Introduction to the Old Testament, Philadelphia 1979, 598-607; A.M. Rodriguez, Esther: A Theological Approach, Berrien Springs 1995, 38-43; P.R. House, Old Testament Theology, Downers Grove, 1998, 490-6. Jobes, Esther, even inserts a special section ‘Bridging Contexts’
after the ‘Original Meaning’ of every passage.
78For a plausible theory about the reasons why the Qumran sect rejec-ted the book see Kalimi, ‘The Book of Esther and the Dead Sea Scrolls’
Community’, 101-6.
79A good survey of opinions is provided by Rodriguez, Esther, 81-90.
80M.C.A. Korpel, ‘Theodicy in the Book of Esther’, in: Laato, De Moor (eds), Theodicy in the World of the Bible, 401-24.
Disillusion among Jews in the Postexilic Period 155
to state that God ‘allows Israel to endure danger’81– it was much more serious.
There are many other pointers to the incomprehensible cruel-ty on the part of God in the book; I discussed them in the same study and will not repeat them here. If God had been mentioned in Esther, He would have stood accused of gross injustice which was only undone by brave human intervention.
In my opinion the Book of Esther should be read as a protest against the religious indifference among Jews still living in exile in the late postexilic period. Those who were succesful in closing a pact with the new rulers of the ancient Near East, the Persians, on the one hand did not want to adopt the religion of the conquerors.
But on the other they felt betrayed by their own God. Esther and Mordecai stand for people who rely on themselves because they feel that God has abandoned them. They courageously take their future in their own hands, not unlike many people in our own times.
The Book of Esther in its canonical Hebrew form compels the reader to reflect on the question whether this is a viable option. Are human beings themselves capable of making just de-cisions if they are forced to give up the idea of a righteous divine Judge protecting the world? It is my conviction that the author of Esther wanted us to answer this question negatively. If human beings stop trusting in a good God they all become merciless murderers.82In common judgement, they may achieve much, but if so, it is ultimately not by their own doing. Even a lovely girl like Esther becomes just as cruel as the evil Haman. The tradi-tional Jewish way of celebrating Purim up to the point where the drunken participants are no longer able to distinguish the ‘evil’
Haman from the ‘good’ Mordecai (b. Meg. 7b) aptly expresses this idea. Where so much killing is involved, it would be arrogant to claim to know exactly what is ‘good’. Deeply disappointed in their God who seemed to have abandoned his people and alien-ated them from their own roots through the foreign cultures they had had to absorb, neither Esther nor Mordecai knows how to address this ‘good’ God any more. Yet Esther vindicates God in spite of his cruelty. She risks her own life for others, thus
show-81So House, Old Testament Theology, 492-3.
82Cf. Paulo Coelho’s thought-provoking novel The Devil and Miss Prym, Eng. tr. A. Hopkinson, N. Caistor, London 2002.
ing the God who hides himself that human beings can decide for themselves what is good. In doing so she invites God to come out and side with what is good. Esther’s brave gamble annulled Haman’s Purim. But at the same time the Book of Esther shows how easily human goodness can come to an end. Nihilism is not the solution.
10 Conclusion
The destruction of the temple on Mt. Zion in 587/586 and the deportation of the Judaean elite to Babylonia created a feeling of hopelessness in the hearts of many Jews in the Persian period.
Not all were immediately ready to dream about a glorious res-toration. One of the reasons for this gloom was the interpret-ation of the disastrous events as the well-deserved punishment for the sins of the fathers. Especially the youth in the postex-ilic era suffered under this harsh doctrine of divine retribution which was supposed to span the generations. The most terrible preexilic prophecies of doom had come true (e.g. Mic. 3:12), and, since the prophets had warned time and again against serving other gods, the general feeling seems to have been that one of the main reasons for the destruction of the temple and the end of the monarchy had been idolatry. There are clear indications not only in the Bible but also from the side of archaeology that people in Yehud attempted to purify the cult of polytheistic elements. Ash-erah, still venerated in preexilic Israel, was symbolically carried off to Babylon (Zech. 5:5-11). This must have had a detrimental effect on family religion and will have been deplored especially by women.
They were by no means the only ones, however, who were disillusioned. Those who still trusted in Yhwh alone also felt abandoned by him, as many cries of anguish from sources which, with more or less certainty, can be dated in the Persian period re-veal. Many doubted that it was still sensible to worship this God.
Others, like Jonah, asked themselves why God did not punish the gentile aggressors, but seemed to deny his chosen people their ex-clusive rights. The hope that God would restore his chosen Dav-idic king soon vanished. The rebuilding of the temple on Mt. Zion met with a lot of opposition, and the erection of a huge Samar-itan temple on Mt. Gerizim shattered the hope of a centralised cult for all Israel.
Disillusion among Jews in the Postexilic Period 157
This feeling of despair and apathy is not only documented by biblical sources. There is evidence of a Jewish identity crisis throughout the Persian empire. The Murashˆu archives show that in Persia and Persian Babylonia Jews who became fairly prosper-ous in their new surroundings began to neglect their religiprosper-ous hol-idays, scorned the dietary laws, married Babylonians, and took on Babylonian names, including names honouring Babylonian deit-ies. Apparently some went even as far as returning to mild forms of polytheism. The same phenomena may be observed in Persian Yehud and with the Jewish garrison in Elephantine in Egypt. Of course, adoption of a foreign name need not mean that one had dropped the Jewish name, let alone that it meant denouncing one’s religion. But we also know that it was not imperative to use a foreign name in the Persian empire. Most Jews kept their own name, even in official documents. But a considerable number of Jews allowed their original names to fall into disuse and felt no scruples in swearing in the name of other deities or in sharing money collected for Yhw with worshippers of other deities. Lack of support from Jerusalem, which was still pursuing the Deu-teronomic/Deuteronomistic ideal of a unified central cult on Mt.
Zion, may have discouraged Jews abroad from supporting their own satellite sanctuaries.