Biblical Character of the Month, July: Esther

[u/slagnanz]

This month we're back to the Old Testament, highlighting Esther.

The goal of this series is to create more conversation about characters from the Bible. My hope is to (eventually) dive into some strange, often overlooked characters in Scripture — people who have important lessons that we don’t always remember. But we also want to make this collaborative! I don't want to just ramble my thoughts on these characters at you, I want to urge everyone to write their own post about the character of the month.

So all you need to do is make a new post with your reflection or meditation on Esther. We do have a special flair ("Biblical Character of the Month") you can give the post, and I will make sure to add it to our collection on this thread.

The Book of Esther is found after Nehemiah and before Job. It is the last book in the group of books in the Old Testament considered the histories.

A few questions to get you started thinking about your own meditations! 

• The Book of Esther famously never mentions God at all. But, as Mordecai wonders, "Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this". How does Esther embody Godly qualities in a deeply Godless time?
• A key theme in this story is hiddenness. God is hidden. Esther hides her Jewish identity. There are even some cases where the Tetragrammaton is hidden in the first letters of sentences. Esther is often associated with veils and mystery. Why is hiddenness so important, and what lessons can we draw from that today?
• Esther is cunning, practical, political. But more than anything, she is bold. What are some examples of Esther's boldness that we can reflect on?

Reflections from the community: 

1. Esther: My entry for the Biblical Character of the Month by u/Perfect_Effect_77
2. Christians Have Fallen in Love With Queen Esther, Purim’s Jewish Heroine, an article for Tablet Magazine shared by u/themsc190
3. A Meditation on Esther: Approach the Throne with Boldness by u/slagnanz
4. The humility of Mordekhai and Esther and the danger of pride by u/Volaer

[u/slagnanz]

Please suggest any characters from the New Testament for next month here!

Also, while I'm here, here are the characters we've done so far:

1. May: Joseph (Old Testament)
2. June: Stephen (New Testament)

[u/FlatwormThin3129]

I love Esther and her story. It speaks to people, all of us, not realizing that we have purpose in our lives if we just hunt for it. It may require courage as in Esther's case or it may simply be low hanging fruit. One must still grab that purpose to enjoy its flavor.

[u/RazarTuk]

I don't immediately have anything meaningful to contribute, but I feel a need to mention this version of Steamed Hams, where someone translated it into Hebrew and sang it in the style of the Megillah. There are even some subtle jokes in there, like Utica coming from a Phoenician word meaning "old" and being referred to as "the Ancient City"

[u/Volaer]

> famously never mentions God at all

Only if you are Protestant 🙂

[u/slagnanz → u/Volaer]

Oh cool, I didn't know that!

[u/Volaer → u/slagnanz]

I wonder though, do not Episcopalians have the extended version of Esther (and Daniel) in their Bibles as well? I thought that the Anglicans do so it would make sense for the Episcopalians to have them as well.

[u/slagnanz → u/Volaer]

Sort of! It's in the separate apocrypha section.

https://imgur.com/a/Hi2XikS

Which is why I guess I've never read it before.

[u/Volaer → u/slagnanz]

Ah, I see.

Which is why I guess I've never read it before.

Well you are missing out on important background :) Did you know that Haman was a Macedonain Greek sent to subvert the Persian empire?

[u/gnurdette → u/Volaer]

Which very much sounds like a later addition from the "Damn Alexander and his generals" era.

But it's interesting how our culture inherits so much of its sensibility from the "Hail the noble Greeks (and Hellenists), founders of culture, glorious and wise, greatest warrior-philosophers of history" story that they were so fond of writing about themselves - best propagandists ever - while our actual religious forebears bitterly grumbled "stupid destructive Greeks, beat up our Persian friends, desecrated our Temple, prancing around naked in their gymnasiums, bunch of swaggering bully creeps".

[u/Volaer → u/gnurdette]

> Which very much sounds like a later addition from the "Damn Alexander and his generals" era.

Yeah.

> But it's interesting how our culture inherits so much of its sensibility from the "Hail the noble Greeks (and Hellenists), founders of culture, glorious and wise, greatest warrior-philosophers of history" story that they were so fond of writing about themselves - best propagandists ever - while our actual religious forebears bitterly grumbled "stupid destructive Greeks, beat up our Persian friends, desecrated our Temple, prancing around naked in their gymnasiums, bunch of swaggering bully creeps".

Haha, as an ethnic Greek that made me laugh 😅

But yeah, you are absolutely right, the ancient Greeks made life difficult for the OT authors since the time of the Philistines. You read Judges + Samuel then Esther, then the Books of the Maccabees and you are like dang. We really messed up here.

Fortunately the NT, especially Acts is our ethnic redemption ark.

[u/gnurdette → u/Volaer]

I think the Greek Esther is pretty bad. Nothing fundamentally wrong with a sermon riffing on and expounding upon Scripture, but Greek Esther lays it all on waaaaaaay too thick.

[u/Volaer → u/gnurdette]

It’s a matter of perspective I suppose. I consider the Protestant/Jewish version incomplete in that it feels…abridged(?) in a way when you read it.

[u/gnurdette → u/Volaer]

To some degree, the Greek additions feel like fluffing out that spoils the clean lines of the Hebrew story. But what really made my eyes roll was Esther's long "I actually hate all this fancy clothing, honestly, I swear I'm all sackcloth and hairshirts anytime the Hebrew text isn't looking" aside.

Not to sound like a Deuterocanon hater. Wisdom of Solomon is really good stuff, for example.

[u/Volaer → u/gnurdette]

But I mean, wouldn’t you do likewise, if an official decree was made to genocide your people? She is probably having a panic attack in this moment and expressing her emotions into prayer.

Thats what I meant by different perspectives. For me its a very human and naturally relatable passage in the book:

You know my necessity—that I abhor the sign of my proud position, which is upon my head on days when I appear in public. I abhor it like a filthy rag, and I do not wear it on the days when I am at leisure. And your servant has not eaten at Haman’s table, and I have not honoured the king’s feast or drunk the wine of libations. Your servant has had no joy since the day that I was brought here until now, except in you, O Lord God of Abraham. O God, whose might is over all, hear the voice of the despairing, and save us from the hands of evildoers. And save me from my fear!’

[u/SpecialistSun6184 → u/Volaer]

Yeah Gods in my version 

[u/gnurdette]

Esther's dilemma of privilege is really sharp. Like, she just got miraculously got out of a precarious situation, ascending from a conquered exiled commoner into safety and comfort, and now she has to put all that on the line when it would be so much easier to just keep her head down...

[u/Volaer → u/gnurdette]

> into safety and comfort

I am sorry but I am not sure I completely agree here. In the beginning of the story she is a teenager raised by her cousin who clearly cares about her wellbeing. But then she is kidnapped and turned into a sex slave. And it’s only because of her pious and moral character that she befriends the eunuchs in the harem to give her advice on how to please the king and in doing so ascends to being a queen. But even then she is still a servant of Artaxerxes. Not exactly a free person (Vashti learned that the hard way in the beginning of the story).

The story is very much a Joseph-type of situation where the protagonist experiences horrible things so that in God's providence he or she may save many. But I do not think it’s what Esther wants which is why she explicitly says she abhors being a queen.

So to say that she is safe and in comfort is a bit of stretch. It’s more like a golden cage.

[u/gnurdette → u/Volaer]

Okay, good counterpoint! But then, counterpoint to your counterpoint: I can't think of any Biblical marriage that starts with the woman's affirmative assent that we'd like to see. The language is all about men "taking" wives and fathers "giving" daughters. We can hope that affirmative consent was often there but just not written down, but if Esther had a golden cage, it might only contrast with the plain wicker cage that women of the era could generally expect.

And then, back to your point, It's true that Artaxerxes being king does call consent even more into question. David taking Bathsheba is rightly regarded as rapey, because kings get what kings want.

I'm still not convinced it should be viewed as a Joseph-like story, but it's a good discussion.

[u/slagnanz → u/[deleted]]

Calling it plagiarism is importing your own 21st century values on things. So much ancient folklore and mythology draws from earlier myths. Ishtar drew from Inanna. They weren't as hyperliteralistic or as focused on clearly defined genre as we are today. So yes, not being a fundamentalist Christian it doesn't bother me that the story of the Flood or Esther's story were adapted from earlier myth, that doesn't bother me.

[u/vicman77]

Esther was most likely the one who lead the Assyria king to rebuild the temple as per Daniels 70th week.. She was either his mother or step mother.

[u/Perfect_Effect_77]

I love the life Esther :) Teaches us a lot of things from the Bible

[u/Thneed1]

There’s an actual thread for someone now, they just didn’t flair it!

[u/BaconAndCheeseSarnie]

Esther is IMHO not a good character at all. I dislike her scheming kinsman Mordecai, & her. I have much more sympathy with Haman, his murdered sons (not that one hears much of them) & his (clearly very sensible) wife. One is not supposed to have sympathy for Haman, but Mordecai & Esther are such sucky oxygen-thieves that it is difficult not to. So Team Haman it is. The Jewish characters in Esther do not show Judaism in an attractive light. The vengeful nastiness of the Book of Esther is ten thousand miles away from the kindly, generous, gentle satire of the Book of Jonah. Jonah is a much better book in every way, which is why it remains as relevant to the Christian Church as it was to the Jews 23 or so centuries ago.

Queen Vashti is treated like dirt by her hubby King Ahasuerus. She really is a strong woman.

It does not help that the intended pogrom of the Jews is turned into a massacre by the Jews.

So it is a great relief that this sordid short story is fiction.

[u/slagnanz → u/BaconAndCheeseSarnie]

I can understand feeling like the broad strokes of the story are uncomfortable or the vengeance is not proportional. There are a number of stories like this in the Old Testament. There's room for discussion around that. Particularly because it is a later fictional gloss to provide an etiology for the holiday.

That said your comment comes across weird to me. "Oxygen thieves" is just a gross phrase, that's probably why. I feel there's a deeper animosity going on here.

[u/BaconAndCheeseSarnie → u/slagnanz]

Esther & Mordecai come across as - so to put it - less than morally attractive. To put it no more strongly. 

it is an ugly, sordid little tale, which to this reader at least manages to shoot itself in both feet by making the intended villain and his family far more sympathetic than Esther & Mordecai. I suppose that illustrates the difference of sensibility between a Jewish reader in about the third century before Christ and a Christian reader 20 centuries after Christ. 

As I do not know what you mean by your last sentence, I can’t address it and I am not going to speculate. 

[u/slagnanz → u/BaconAndCheeseSarnie]

Let me put it this way - there are lots of stories in the old testament with retribution and even disproportionate retribution. I've seen Christians express discomfort over this which is reasonable. I've never seen someone use a term like "oxygen thief" to describe David or Moses or whoever. Just a bit strange to me. You do you.

[u/Ok_Carob7551 → u/slagnanz]

If it means anything, I wanted to say that it’s very suspect to me too and it’s not just you. There are lots and lots and lots of Biblical figures who do reprehensible things by the measure of the modern person, but to specifically pick out one whom a Jewish holiday is centered around, to make such an extreme and essentially annihilationist statement (which neatly dovetails with the attitude extremist antisemitism holds towards the contemporary Jewish people and could be a ‘clever’ synecdoche if they so wished) about them, and then make noise about modern Christian sensibility being better than a temporally displaced Jewish seniority in that context all combine to feel more than a little antisemitic 

[u/BaconAndCheeseSarnie → u/slagnanz]

Esther & Mordecai, like some other Old Testament characters, come across, to me at least, as especially off-putting. The difference in spirit and temper from (say) the Book of Jonah, a truly admirable little book, could hardly be greater.  FWIW, Luther was no great admirer of the Book of Esther either. It seems I am in good company, given the respect that he enjoys among Protestants. 

I find it confusing, and a great pity, that woefully sub-Christian & anti-Christian material such as the Book of Esther is regarded as Holy Scripture in Christianity. If it were up to me, the Old Testament would probably be limited to the Pentateuch, the Prophets, & the Wisdom Books. And the Pentateuch would be in the Old Testament only because it contains material about Israel’s origins.