Who Wrote the Book of Esther?

FOR PURIM: Who Wrote the Book of Esther? Tradition says Mordechai wrote the Book of Esther, but surely he wouldn't have gotten the timing of his own expulsion a century wrong? (Elon Gilad, Haaretz).

Why would a Jewish scribe writing in Shushan in the 4th century B.C.E. write about events that settled the score between Saul and God in the preceding century? Jona Schellekens, a sociologist at the Hebrew University, came up with a theory for this, which he published in a paper in 2009.

The Jewish propaganda theory

According to Schellekens' interpretation, the Book of Esther is a fanciful family history of a rich and powerful Jewish family in 4th century B.C.E. Shushan, a legendary account of how the family's ancestor Mordechai gained power in court, and of the source of the family's wealth and authority.

This Haaretz article is a good survey of the historical-critical issues for the Book of Esther. It was published originally in 2015 and I linked to it then, with comments.

Schellekens's hypothesis, which I did not comment on in my earlier post, strikes me as a plausible, but speculative, reconstruction.

His methodology has similarties to the approach of the TheTorah.com essay by Prof. Rabbi Reuven Kimelman to which I linked yesterday. Both trace structural similarites in the Book of Esther to earlier biblical stories. It's interesting that the latter thinks the parallels to the Ruth story are centrally important, whereas the former ignores them.

The article by Schellekens underlying the Haaretz piece is "Accession Days and Holidays: The Origins of the Jewish Festival of Purim" Journal of Biblical Literature, 128. 1 (Spring, 2009):115-134. https://doi.org/10.2307/25610170.

The links are to JSTOR and to the JBL website, respectively. The article is behind the subscription wall in both.

For more on the historical background of the Book of Esther, see here.

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