The Calendrical Sense of the Book(s) of Esther (original) (raw)
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The Date of Purim and Calendars in the Book of Esther
The paper suggests that The Book of Esther contains astronomical and chronological information associated with the reign of Artaxerxes II. It further investigates a play on dates concerning an intercalary 12 th Hebrew month and the eve of Passover, and possible mathematical references to Ancient Near Eastern and Jewish calendars.
Calendars in the Book of Esther: Purim, Festivals, Cosmology
Studies on Magic and Divination in the Biblical World, 2013
"Abstract Calendars in the Book of Esther: Purim, Festivals, Cosmology This paper suggests that Esther added an extra month and a day to the king’s calendar to thwart the date chosen by Haman for the annihilation of the Jews. The result was that the Jews in the provinces were preparing and celebrating Passover when the Jews of Sushan, who had the benefit of additional time, were fighting then feasting. Esther’s intervention is related to Babylonian apotropaic calendar manipulation and the text indicates how a 354-day lunar calendar and a 360-day calendar might work. The analysis includes dates for Shavuot followed by different groups in Second Temple Judaism, one of which is reflected in a 364-day calendar scheme that is also attested at Qumran. "
A Reassessment of the Book of Esther
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.
Reading Esther in the Levantine Literary Tradition (pre-publication draft)
Biblica, 2019
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.
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.
Persica Antiqua: The International Journal of Ancient Iranian Studies, 2023
Most modern scholars consider the Book of Esther to be a kind of historical novel; hence, the historicity of many of its characters and events is highly debatable. While the present study does not intend to defend the historicity of the book, it does review it again by using sources that have received less attention in this regard. That the Book of Esther has a lot of Persian realia in it is not news, but most scholars have debated its historical value by comparing the book with classical sources. However, the present article aims to show how a significant part of the historical material of the Book of Esther is in line with evidence that if not all, but most of the classical sources are unaware of, and accepting this fact means that the author of the Masoretic Esther had direct or indirect access to sources associated with the Persian state. In order to prove this issue, using the descriptive-analytical method based on library studies, the primary focus of this article has been on sources other than the Greek ones, mainly Achaemenian royal inscriptions, and economic and legal documents found in different parts of the Persian Empire.
In his classic An Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament, Samuel R. Driver concluded, Materials do not exist for fixing otherwise than approximately the date at which the Book of Esther was composed. Xerxes [B.C. 485-465] is described... in terms which imply that his reign lay in a somewhat distant past when the author wrote. By the majority of critics the Book is assigned either to the early years of the Greek period (which began B.C. 332), or to the 3rd cent. B.C. With such a date the diction would well agree, which, though superior to that of the Chronicler, and more accommodating to the model of the earlier books, contains many late words and idioms, and exhibits much deterioration in syntax.2