Esther’s Power Play: Negotiating Power and Violence in the Ancient Esther Tradition

Abstract

The Hebrew and the two Greek Esther narratives are important witnesses to how ancient Jewish scribes in the Hellenistic and Roman periods used fictional storytelling to negotiate the necessity of violent action to assert Jewish power in the face of imperial domination and existential threats. While previous scholarship has most often focused on moral issues concerning the drastic depiction of the battle scenes, this study aims to demonstrate that the passages describing how the Jews violently fought back against their Persian enemies illustrate the interest in reflecting on questions of Jewish power and superiority. In offering an analysis of the concluding chapters of the three oldest Esther narratives, this paper also brings to light previously unnoticed variations in the depiction of violence which show that questions of power and violence were a point of continuous discussion. Furthermore, close attention to these variants allows for important conclusions about the socio-political and historical contexts in which these texts were likely produced.