Book of Esther
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Date: 2019-01-26

Book of Esther, by Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=4382 / CC BY SA 3.0

#4th-century_BC_books
#Book_of_Esther
#Deuterocanonical_books
#Esther
#Ketuvim
#Purim
Book of Esther

The Book of Esther, also known in Hebrew as "the Scroll" ("Megillah"), is a book in the third section ("Ketuvim", "Writings") of the Jewish "Tanakh" (the Hebrew Bible) and, in a version with some additions, in the Christian Old Testament. It is one of the five Scrolls ("Megillot") in the Hebrew Bible. It relates the story of a Hebrew woman in Persia, born as Hadassah but known as Esther, who becomes queen of Persia and thwarts a genocide of her people. The story forms the core of the Jewish festival of Purim, during which it is read aloud twice: once in the evening and again the following morning. The books of Esther and Song of Songs are the only books in the Hebrew Bible that do not explicitly mention God.

The biblical Book of Esther is set in the Persian capital of Susa ("Shushan") in the third year of the reign of the Persian king Ahasuerus. The name "Ahasuerus" is equivalent to "Xerxes" (both deriving from the Persian "Khshayārsha"), and Ahasuerus is usually identified in modern sources as Xerxes I, who ruled between 486 and 465 BC, as it is to this monarch that the events described in Esther are thought to fit the most closely.

Assuming that Ahasuerus is indeed Xerxes I, the events described in Esther began around the years 483–482 BC, and concluded in March 473 BC.

Classical sources such as Josephus, the Jewish commentary "Esther Rabbah" and the Christian theologian Bar-Hebraeus, as well as the Greek Septuagint translation of Esther, instead identify Ahasuerus as either Artaxerxes I (reigned 465 to 424 BC) or Artaxerxes II (reigned 404 to 358 BC).

On his accession, however, Artaxerxes II lost Egypt to pharaoh Amyrtaeus, after which it was no longer part of the Persian empire. In his "Historia Scholastica" Petrus Comestor identified Ahasuerus (Esther 1:1) as Artaxerxes II...