I just finished re-reading the book of Esther last night. A few notes. Vashti was his Chief Concubine, not his wife. If Esther ever existed, she then became Chief Concubine. Vashti is historical. Concubines and whores are pretty well respected in most of the Bible, so one has to wonder why the author was so squeamish about calling her a concubine.
The King is called Xerxes in Greek and was the one who killed the 300 Spartans and burned Athens to the ground. Which does not sound like the weak-willed man in Esther. But home life can be different than power politics.
Many scholars think the holiday of Purim was celebrated for many years and the priests made up the story of Esther to explain it, since the original explanation had been lost to history. I have never figured out how the scholars came up with that story. The reality of the actual story sounds more likely than their idea. Xerxes had lots of wives in his major cities, Susa one of them, and there is no reason a Jewish girl couldn't win a beauty contest and be one of them.
Esther is the only book in The Bible that does not mention God.
The Persians treated their Jewish population fairly well, as they did their other conquered populations.
Every time I think of Esther, I picture Cote de Pablo, the actress who plays Siva David, the Israeli agent, on NCIS. I don't even know if Cote is really Jewish. |
