ESTHER, BOOK OF, one of the very latest of the canonical works of the Old Testa ment, and commonly, but without a shadow of evidence, supposed to be written by Mordecai or Ezra. This is the view of Abenesra, Clement of Alexandria, Augustine, Gerhard, and others. The Talmud assigns the authorship to the members of the great synagogue, a semi-mythical body, who are made use of by Jewish rabbis and Christian divines as a sort of Deus ex Inachina to solve every difficulty. According to the opinions of the most learned and unprejudiced critics, the date of its composition must be placed after the downfall of the Persian monarchy. The language is much later than that of Ezra and Nehemiah, and the fact of occasional explanation of Persian customs fits the period of the Seleucithe better than an earlier one. The Hebrew text is that which has been followed in the English version; but the Septuagint is full of late interpolations and additions by Alexandrian Jews. The book is held in the highest reverence by the Jews; so much so, that Maimonides declared that, in the days of the Messiah, every Jewish scripture would be forgotten except the book of Esther and the Pentateuch.
The book is not written in a theocratic spirit, like the rest of Jewish literature. Nothing is directly attributed to God; in fact, his name is not once mentioned. Neither is there the remotest trace of religious feeling of any kind. Luther, in his usual off-hand hasty way, expressed his contempt for the book, in spite of the admiration which the Jews bestowed on it, censuring it for its "heathenish extravagance," and declaring that, in his judgment, it was "more worthy than all of being excluded from the canon." The absence of all recognition of God, perplexed some of the ancient Jewish commentators, who therefore invented the hypothesis, that the book was origi nally a part of the Persian chronicles, probably executed by Mordecai; and that, being intended for the heathen, the sacred name was wisely left out!