Some Further Thoughts on the Book of Esther

My previous post on Velveteen Rabbi's reflections on the Book of Esther left me thinking some more on some of the interesting facts about this text. It is, as she points out, the one text in the Hebrew Bible that contains no explicit reference to God or YHWH although she reminds us that "many readers (especially Hasidic commentators) find God's presence hidden subtly all over the text." Esther is also a text whose purpose seems to be giving scriptural warrant to the Festival of Purim (9.18-32). Scholars are divided over the origins of this festival. Some have argued that it is derived from the Persian New Year or from a Persian Day of the Dead. Others have argued a Babylonian background, especially as the names Mordecai and Esther are likely derived from the Babylonian deities, Marduk and Ishtar. Given that the Jewish holy days in Leviticus have analogues in the broader cultural world of the ancient Middle East and its agricultural, I'm sure that Purim is a scripturally "baptised" festival of some sort taken up into Temple Judaism. The Old Testament biblical project is one of reworking, deconstructing and reconstructing the older "pagan" religious matrix from which it developed.

The other interesting point about Esther is that it exists in multiple versions. As well as the Hebrew version, there are not one but two Greek versions which are included in the Greek Bible or Septuagint and termed the A version and the B vesion. Both have a core story that largely is equivalent to the story of Hebrew Esther but augmented with a number of additions. These are:

A. The Dream of Mordecai, which introduces the book (1.a-k, in my Orthodox Bible; 11.2-12.6 in the Latin Vulgate)

B. The text of Haman's edict, written in the name of the king, for the destruction of the Jews, inserted in chapter 3 (3.13a-13g; 13.1-7 Vulgate)

C. Prayers of Esther and Mordecai, inserted after Esther 4.17 (4.17a-17w; 13.8-14.19 Vulgate)

D. An extended account of Esther's confrontation with her husband the king, replacing Hebrew Esther 5.1ff (15.1-16 Vulgate)

E. The text of the king's edict rescinding the previous edict issued in his name by Haman, inserted after 8.12 (8.12a-812u, 16.1-24 Vulgate)

F. An Epilogue in which Mordecai reflects on his dream and which provides more warrant for Purim and concludes with a colophon giving a futher scribal confirmation of the authenticity of the text.

According to David de Silva (Introducing the Apocrypha, 2002) the base text of Version A is translated from a different Semitic original than that of Version B but has taken up the additions from Version B. A number of scholars have argued that the base text of Version A is older than the standard Hebrew version. It was also orignally thought that all of the additions were composed in Greek but there is now a consensus that only Additions B and E are Greek compositions while A, C, D & F were originally in Hebrew or Aramaic. So the Greek evidence indicates that there were at least two version of the base Esther narrative in circulation and that it was augmented with additions.

It would appear that took some time for Esther to be accepted into both Jewish and Christian canons. No version has been found at Qumran although some scholars have argued that 4Q550, the Tale of Patireza and Bagasraw, could be an Esther prototype. But whole this story is set in the court of the Great King it only has superficial similarities. Rather than a prototype it might have provided a model for inspiration but that can only ever be a might as the two stories are different.

Under, the influence of Jerome, the Greek Additions to Esther, were relegated to a postscript. Jerome put them all at the end of the Hebrew version which is the standard or the Vulgate (and thus making a fourth version of Esther, albeit an unsatisfactory one). Protestants consigned them to the Apocrypha and hence they have disappeared from most English language (and derived) Bibles.

It was intersting, then to discover that in the Jewish Aramaic Bible or Targumim there are actually two versions of Esther. The Targumim deploy paraphrase extensively in the translations from the Hebrew and are not averse to inserting additional material, especially if it can enhance a narrative or the meaning of a particular passage. In the case of both Targumim to Esther, Targum Rishon and Targum Sheni, these additions are quite considerable, reminiscent of the Greek Additions. Indeed the Targum Sheni inserts material on Solomon and the Queen of Sheba!

It would appear then that Esther has had a quite complicated history, starting life as a religious burlesque for performance at a popular Feast of Fools, probably composed in the Temple. For whatever reason another edition was released and both circulated in Jewish communities. Some communities added further material resulting in three or four circulating two of which would be taken up by Christians. In the Jewish world one text became standard, eventually itself being augmented with new additional material by different communities for a variety of reasons, exegetical, performative etc.

Through all of this process, text, cult and community seem inextricably linked. In the Jewish world, Esther is primarly a performative text, not just in terms of public recitation but also in a plethora of dramatic and carnival forms. I can't help but think that these performances have themselves helped to shape the meta-text of Esther as we know it today in its multiple forms. None have the patina of greater authenticity although Jerome's Latin version is by far the most artificial, in part because he is on the quest for the 'Hebrew truth' of the original. But just as there never was an Esther or Mordecai so there is no original text to be found. It is lost, along with the origins of Purim. And even if we could rediscover or reconstruct an original text, it could tell us nothing except in relation to the others comprising the meta-text that already exists. Any original text is merely a starting point not a vehicle of revelation.

Velveteen Rabbi on Esther

Amongst the many blogs listed on my blog roll is Velveteen Rabbi. I strongly recommend regular visits to her site. You will not be sorry. One post that particularly caught my eye is her recent post on the book of Esther, in particular chapter 9 in the Hebrew version, The End of Esther. It was Purim last week and the Esther Scroll is read for the Purim observances. Indeed Purim is a kind of Jewish Feast of Fools. The Babylonian Talmud even says that at Purim a person must get so drunk "...that we cannot tell the difference between cursing Haman and blessing Mordecai" (B.T. Megilla 7B). The book of Esther is written for Purim and in chapter 9 contains an account of how Purim was instituted as a feast for the Jewish people on the authority of both Mordecai and Esther (Esther 9.18-32). Greek Esther concludes with a postscript authentication the account and the authorisation for the celebration of Purim (Gk Esther 10.3k).

The Book of Esther is about reversals, comedic reversals. Velveteen Rabbi cites Marc Zvi Brettler who calls it "more like comedy, burlesque, or farce." An appropriate text for a Feast of Fools. Chapter 9 recounts the ultimate reversal in which the Jews attack and kill their enemies following the undoing of Haman's plot against them. Haman himself was hanged on the gallows he had built for the had built for the execution of Mordecai The name of Purim is derived from the word for lots, the lots that Haman cast to determine the date for his planned massacre of the Jewish people.

As Velveteen Rabbi observes, chapter 9 is about comedic reversal expressed through revenge. It's over the top, an essential quality of comedy, but it is a bloody comedy, which in our time must be handled with care. She reminds us it was on Purim 1994 that the Cave of the Patriarchs massacre took place at Hebron, carrried out by the Kach extremist and settler, Baruch Goldstein, in which approximately 50 Palestinians were killed and over 120 wounded. Goldstein had clearly broken the Talmudic injunction and had gotten drunk on hate rather than drunk on wine.

What I found most interseting is what Velveteen Rabbi recounts of contemporary Jewish practice in dealing with chapter 9 in such a way that it does not become a licence for revenge. I was most struck by the practice adopted in some synagogues: "Others have taken to reading it in Eikha trope -- the sorrowing minor melodic mode we use for chanting Lamentations on Tisha b'Av, instead of the happier tune we use for chanting Esther on Purim."

She goes on to note that some have even called for the passage to be excised from Esther. Her response is as follows:

But when we studied this text at the end of the Biblical History class I took this past fall, my teacher Reb Leila Gal Berner argued that we can't excise these verses from our text -- nor should we. We have to grapple with the end of the book, and even if we breathe a sigh of relief when we say "this didn't really happen," we have to ask ourselves why this violent end to the story is in our text, and how we want to address the reality that it is there.

I would agree. There is a tendency in many religious communities to want to excise texts that make us feel uncomfortable, to only use texts that 'feel good' and where they don't exist to compose them and add them to our canons. I have a problem with that sort of approach. It creates a kind of vanilla world in which we always feel good and are never confronted by the depths of life in all its messiness and, oftentimes, nastiness and brutality. We are not angels yet! Furthermore we do not know what horrors we might be encoding for future generations in what to us seems noble and uplifiting.

Most importantly, Veleveteen Rabbi demonstrates the importance of the way a text is received and read by a community. No one reads alone but reads according to conventions of meaning taught to them by their community. Baruch Goldstien's community was a fascist and racist one hence he 'performed' Esther as racist massacre. Many rightwing evangelical Christians read texts like this in bloodthirsty and oppressive ways. Even worse they deny that they are reading to conventions shared and taught in their communities - homophobic, misogynistic, racist conventions, and in the US imbued with a US exceptionalism ideology that confuses Jesus with Superman as the one representing the "American Way."

Those Jewish communities who read Esther 9 with tone of lamentation provide models for us all in reading texts that disturb, the bloodied texts, which are found in abundance in the biblical texts and other scriptures too.