ESTHER, BOOK OF. In the Hebrew Canon of the Old Testament the Book of Esther is one of the five books described as Megilloth (or " Rolls "). The book purports to be historical, but it is now widely regarded as a Jewish romance. It narrates that the Persian king Ahasuerus (Xerxes, 485-465 B.C.) repudiated his proud consort Vashti and made Esther, the adopted daughter of the Jew Mordecai, queen in her place. Haman, the Agagite, the enemy of Mordecai, hatches a plot to massacre the Jews. This plot is frustrated by Esther, with the result that Haman is hanged, and Mordecai promoted to take his adversary's place. The Jews were mercifully delivered, and in memory of this deliverance the Feast of I'urim was observed on the 14th and 15th of the month Adar (Feb.-March). In II. Maccabees xv. 36 the Day of Nicanor, on which was celebrated Judas' defeat at Adasa of Nicanor the general of Antiochus Epiphanes, is referred to as being " the day before the Day of Mordecai." This Day of Mor decai seems to be identical with the Feast of Purim referred to in Esther ix. 22. The contents and language of the Book of Esther point to a late date for its com position. " In the Book of Esther the Persian empire is treated as a thing of the past, already invested with a halo of romance. The writer must therefore have
lived some considerable time after Alexander the Great, not earlier than the third, probably in the second, century before Christ. The book presupposes moreover that the Jews had long been ` scattered abroad and dispersed' among the nations (iii. 8); this idea of a ' dispersion ' (Stacrropa) points to the time when large Jewish settlements were to be found within the domain of Greek civilisation. The same period is indicated by the passage about the conversion of vast multitudes to Judaism (ix. 27), for such a conception would have been impossible even in a romance, until Jewish proselytes had become numerous " (Eneyel. Bibl.). A. Kuenen and C. Cornill assign the book to about 135 B.C. O. C. Whitehouse thinks " it probably arose after the Mac cabaean war (165 B.C.), when the spirit of national exclusiveness in the Jewish people became intensified." The purpose of the book is to explain the origin of the Feast of Purim and to encourage the observance of it. See T. K. Cheyne and J. S. Black, Eneyel. Bibl.; C. Cornill, Intr.; G. H. Box; O. C. Whitehouse.