The Bible's Queen Esther has had a recent surge in popularity.
People love the story of a Jewish peasant girl rising to the rank of queen and eventually
saving her entire people.
But Queen Esther's story is more than that.
Here are some weird things you didn't know about Queen Esther.
Here's a brief and unofficial summation of Esther's story to get us started: Long ago
in Persia the queen angered the king, so he dumped her and picked a new queen: Esther,
who was secretly Jewish.
But when her cousin Mordecai got in trouble, the big bad guy Haman decided to kill all
the Jewish people.
So Esther threw a banquet and revealed to the king that she herself was Jewish; he took
her side, Haman ended up dead, and now to celebrate we get Purim and triangle-shaped
cookies.
The end!
But actually, there's a lot more to it than that.
Weirdly for a book about a woman, you have to start with a dude - Esther's husband, King
Xerxes, after his conquering and soldiering days are over.
First let us clarify: Yes, it is the same King Xerxes from 300.
He was the guy who tried to conquer Greece and failed.
But his list of his victories is pretty extensive, he basically created the very concept of Persia
after he became the ruler of Babylonia, Egypt, and a bunch of other nations with their cultures.
He also popularized Zoroastrianism, a religion which is considered the predecessor to a lot
of monotheistic faiths that have messiah figures and contend with the balance between good
and evil.
Esther's predecessor, Queen Vashti, was as queen because she disobeyed King Xerxes.
But the context puts things in perspective: King Xerxes commanded Queen Vashti to come
to his feast.
He wanted her to parade around so he could show off what a beautiful woman his wife was
to his bros.
This command came while she was hosting her own dinner, and some scholars think he was
actually asking her to show up nude.
"The King requires my lady's presence."
"For what purpose?"
"He makes display of his most treasured objects."
"Am I such an object?"
She refused to come, probably because she didn't want to indulge her drunken husband.
So obviously the king said she deserved to be punished for such a transgression.
Though Vashti was once villified, modern Biblical scholars view her as a feminist icon, standing
up for her own rights and status as a person.
Queen Esther's birth name was Hadassah, a Hebrew name that means myrtle, a beautiful
type of tree.
But she took on the name Esther to help hide her heritage.
"Tell no one you're a Jew."
"What?"
"You cannot even use your name, call yourself 'Esther.'"
This was probably for her own protection, seeing as the anti-Semitic Haman was in power
and her cousin Mordecai could see the way the wind was blowing.
Esther's greatly admired by how much she tried to maintain her Jewish traditions even in
secret.
Esther and Mordechai were definitely cousins.
There was also a big age gap between them, seeing as Mordechai took Esther in after she
was orphaned.
But according to TheTorah.com, some translations suggest he took her in as his wife, not as
his ward.
It may not have been as icky as it sounds to modern ears, though.
Some scholars suggest Mordechai could have married Esther to protect her.
The society at hand largely viewed women as the property of men, so marriage meant men
wouldn't mess with Esther because to do so was to offend Mordechai.
Esther wasn't just the King's wife, she was a political powerhouse in her own right.
To save her people, she began with a risky first move: Entering the king's court without
being summoned.
This could have 100 percent gotten Esther killed.
But she dared to do it, dressing in the finery of a queen and accompanied by two maids to
give her the proper air of authority and power.
She then requested that the King and Haman both attend a banquet, where she then dramatically
revealed her heritage, as well as Haman's plot to exterminate the Jews and begs for
the king's help.
It was a masterful bit of political theater, but it was only part of the plan.
In the background, Mordecai had also foiled a plot to kill the King.
Once the King put two and two together, it culminated in a very bad day for Haman: the
Jews were saved, Mordecai became the King's chief advisor, and Haman was executed.
The Megillah, which is the Jewish text about Esther's life that's read at Purim says that
she may not have had natural beauty, but instead was blessed with grace from God.
And honestly, Esther's story makes more sense when her beauty is a God-given superpower.
The Jewish Encyclopedia states that in this version of events, the other girls, instead
of being jealous, take care of her because they can clearly see the king will choose
her.
The king tries to look away from her when she visits court to resist her beauty, but
God allegedly sends angels to force him to check her out.
Later on, he says he will give Esther half the kingdom if she so asked.
And when Haman is begging Queen Esther for his life, he falls onto the couch she's lying
on.
The king walks in, thinks Haman is trying to go after his hot wife, and promptly has
Haman executed.
For millennia, Esther's story has been celebrated during the holiday of Purim.
But modern scholars believe that Purim might not originally have been a Jewish holiday
at all.
The theory?
That Purim and the story of Esther are a reworking of a Babylonian holiday, something suggested
by the names, Esther, Mordecai, and Haman are close to the names of the Babylonian gods
Ishtar, Marduk, and Humman.
The holiday also didn't include religious elements initially.
The reading of Esther's story in temple was added over time.
And some Jews maintain the tradition of dressing up Halloween-style on Purim, which may pay
tribute to Jews secretly practicing their religion in times of persecution.
It may have also been a way to lend dignity to poor people who were looking for help on
Purim.
When everyone's receiving gifts, no one's embarrassed.
Esther's story is infamous among Bible scholars for never directly mentioning God.
A lot of Sunday school pastors write this off, saying God doesn't have to be mentioned
for evidence to show religious forces are at work in Esther's life.
But the lack of mentioning God was actually a big problem when it came to getting Esther
into the Bible at all.
Religious icon Martin Luther actually said about it,
"I am so great an enemy to...Esther, that I wish [it] had not come to us at all, for
[it has] too many heathen unnaturalities."
Interestingly, though, the Greek version of the book of Esther does include dozens of
references to God, but those parts are considered to be apocryphal, so they're not included
in the Bible.
Weird, right?
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