Books of Esther Historicity

[jerryp48]

I love the Book of Esther and the beautiful story it tells.  That said, its not found in the Dead Sea Scrolls (to my knowledge) and Esther and Mordecai are not mentioned outside the Book of Esther itself (to my knowledge).  The story of Joseph of Egypt tells a similar story of deliverance but its mentioned many times outside Genesis.

I have no problem with it being a fictional story meant to teach a principle and don’t hold the canon as infallible.  We know from the Book of Mormon itself that God doesn’t prevent errors from making their way into a sacred text so it wouldn’t affect my faith if it were fictional.   

Curious what your thoughts are.

[jerryp48]

Sorry that should say Book of Esther

[Tacenda]

Didn't they just find out that the Dead Sea Scrolls are forgeries? https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/museum-of-the-bible-dead-sea-scrolls-forgeries#:~:text=The Museum of the Bible houses 16 purported Dead Sea,16 fragments are modern forgeries.

[Durangout]

I hadn’t thought too much about Esther being fictional.   I do think Job is fictional so her story could be as well.

btw, I love the Book of Job and have gained great insights from it.

[Calm]

28 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

Didn't they just find out that the Dead Sea Scrolls are forgeries? https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/museum-of-the-bible-dead-sea-scrolls-forgeries#:~:text=The Museum of the Bible houses 16 purported Dead Sea,16 fragments are modern forgeries.

The ones belonging to the Museum of the Bible are forgeries. There are many, many others (thousands). 
 

https://www.haaretz.com/archaeology/2020-03-16/ty-article/.highlight/after-dead-sea-forgeries-exposed-how-do-we-know-the-scrolls-in-israel-are-real/0000017f-e8ad-df5f-a17f-fbff96e10000?_amp=true

“In contrast, the confetti-sized parchments that Hobby Lobby donated to the Museum of the Bible ahead of its grand opening in 2017 were part of a group of around 70 fragments that had mysteriously surfaced on the antiquities market around 2002. These were snapped up for millions of dollarsby collectors and institutions, even though it was unclear how they had made their way from the Judean desert into the hands of antiquities dealers.”

Edited July 26, 2022 by Calm

[Tacenda]

19 minutes ago, Calm said:

The ones belonging to the Museum of the Bible are forgeries. There are many, many others (thousands). 
 

https://www.haaretz.com/archaeology/2020-03-16/ty-article/.highlight/after-dead-sea-forgeries-exposed-how-do-we-know-the-scrolls-in-israel-are-real/0000017f-e8ad-df5f-a17f-fbff96e10000?_amp=true

“In contrast, the confetti-sized parchments that Hobby Lobby donated to the Museum of the Bible ahead of its grand opening in 2017 were part of a group of around 70 fragments that had mysteriously surfaced on the antiquities market around 2002. These were snapped up for millions of dollarsby collectors and institutions, even though it was unclear how they had made their way from the Judean desert into the hands of antiquities dealers.”

I failed to read in full, thanks Calm for nicely setting me straight!

[CV75]

14 hours ago, jerryp48 said:

I love the Book of Esther and the beautiful story it tells.  That said, its not found in the Dead Sea Scrolls (to my knowledge) and Esther and Mordecai are not mentioned outside the Book of Esther itself (to my knowledge).  The story of Joseph of Egypt tells a similar story of deliverance but its mentioned many times outside Genesis.

I have no problem with it being a fictional story meant to teach a principle and don’t hold the canon as infallible.  We know from the Book of Mormon itself that God doesn’t prevent errors from making their way into a sacred text so it wouldn’t affect my faith if it were fictional.   

Curious what your thoughts are.

It is indeterminate: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/bd/esther-book-of?lang=eng "There have been doubts at times as to whether it should be admitted to the canon of scripture. But the book has a religious value as containing a most striking illustration of God’s overruling providence in history and as exhibiting a very high type of courage, loyalty, and patriotism."

Re: what constitutes canon and its characteristics: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/bd/canon?lang=eng

Edited July 26, 2022 by CV75

[jerryp48]

32 minutes ago, CV75 said:

It is indeterminate: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/bd/esther-book-of?lang=eng "There have been doubts at times as to whether it should be admitted to the canon of scripture. But the book has a religious value as containing a most striking illustration of God’s overruling providence in history and as exhibiting a very high type of courage, loyalty, and patriotism."

Re: what constitutes canon and its characteristics: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/bd/canon?lang=eng

Interesting, thanks for that.

[Benjamin McGuire]

16 hours ago, jerryp48 said:

I love the Book of Esther and the beautiful story it tells.  That said, its not found in the Dead Sea Scrolls (to my knowledge) and Esther and Mordecai are not mentioned outside the Book of Esther itself (to my knowledge).  The story of Joseph of Egypt tells a similar story of deliverance but its mentioned many times outside Genesis.

I have no problem with it being a fictional story meant to teach a principle and don’t hold the canon as infallible.  We know from the Book of Mormon itself that God doesn’t prevent errors from making their way into a sacred text so it wouldn’t affect my faith if it were fictional.   

Curious what your thoughts are.

There are a couple of issues.

First, the title of this thread uses the word "historicity." This term refers to the actuality of the events and the people. The fact that there is no mention of Esther and Mordecai in a time frame in which we have every expectation that they would have been found in the historical record if they had been real, is a very strong argument against the historicity of the Book of Esther. What I mean by this is that we have a relative wealth of information about the time period and events/people in Persia at the time that this story was supposed to have taken place, and the individuals and events in this story don't have any corollaries in the historical record. This doesn't mean that the text doesn't have verisimilitude. This is a term that describes when a text reads as if it came from the time period that it claims and describes events that could have happened even if they didn't. The text displays a considerable amount of familiarity with Persia in the 5th century BCE (even if it gets some things wrong). The general view is that it is a fictional novella (a form of literature that was becoming popular within Persia at that period of time).

The Book of Esther wasn't written as fiction meant to "teach a principle" but was just written as fiction - and for those who are familiar enough with the genre as it was produced contemporary to this text, it isn't particularly novel of unique. As Adele Berlin describes it:

Quote

In a way, the story of Esther is nothing more than a conglomeration of common motifs associated with the Persian court, woven throughout the equally conventional story lines such as the wise courtier in a foreign court, the contest between courtiers, and the woman who saves her people. The wonder is that from all this standard literary fare could come such a clever and funny entertainment.

This sort of need to justify the place of the text in the canon, or to try and make the narrative special in some way, is part of the issue that we have in our modern treatment of the text (and by modern I mean the last few hundred years). We can certainly find lots of meanings in the text, if we choose to, but those meanings reflects more about ourselves than it does about any original text or author. Those who think that the meanings that later audiences draw from a story like this should be attributed to its original authorship and context are engaging in a literary presentism. The story is entertaining. It has humor, it has well defined heroes and villains; its plot has reversals, and the bad guys get what they deserve (even if it happens for the wrong reasons). Good literature is good literature, and it shouldn't surprise us that it became popular enough within certain cultural contexts to move beyond its original audience. It became (to use a bad sort of pun) a cult classic.

You should read the entire article I link above. It is very good.

Ben McGuire

[The Nehor]

22 hours ago, Tacenda said:

Didn't they just find out that the Dead Sea Scrolls are forgeries? https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/museum-of-the-bible-dead-sea-scrolls-forgeries#:~:text=The Museum of the Bible houses 16 purported Dead Sea,16 fragments are modern forgeries.

No, just the ones that Hobby Lobby acquired. They are really trying to become a cross between a colonial-era British museum and an Indiana Jones villain in their weird obsession with artifacts and a complete lack of morals and competence in acquiring them.

[jerryp48]

On 7/26/2022 at 11:31 AM, Benjamin McGuire said:

There are a couple of issues.

First, the title of this thread uses the word "historicity." This term refers to the actuality of the events and the people. The fact that there is no mention of Esther and Mordecai in a time frame in which we have every expectation that they would have been found in the historical record if they had been real, is a very strong argument against the historicity of the Book of Esther. What I mean by this is that we have a relative wealth of information about the time period and events/people in Persia at the time that this story was supposed to have taken place, and the individuals and events in this story don't have any corollaries in the historical record. This doesn't mean that the text doesn't have verisimilitude. This is a term that describes when a text reads as if it came from the time period that it claims and describes events that could have happened even if they didn't. The text displays a considerable amount of familiarity with Persia in the 5th century BCE (even if it gets some things wrong). The general view is that it is a fictional novella (a form of literature that was becoming popular within Persia at that period of time).

The Book of Esther wasn't written as fiction meant to "teach a principle" but was just written as fiction - and for those who are familiar enough with the genre as it was produced contemporary to this text, it isn't particularly novel of unique. As Adele Berlin describes it:

This sort of need to justify the place of the text in the canon, or to try and make the narrative special in some way, is part of the issue that we have in our modern treatment of the text (and by modern I mean the last few hundred years). We can certainly find lots of meanings in the text, if we choose to, but those meanings reflects more about ourselves than it does about any original text or author. Those who think that the meanings that later audiences draw from a story like this should be attributed to its original authorship and context are engaging in a literary presentism. The story is entertaining. It has humor, it has well defined heroes and villains; its plot has reversals, and the bad guys get what they deserve (even if it happens for the wrong reasons). Good literature is good literature, and it shouldn't surprise us that it became popular enough within certain cultural contexts to move beyond its original audience. It became (to use a bad sort of pun) a cult classic.

You should read the entire article I link above. It is very good.

Ben McGuire

Thanks for that link.  A little deeper than I wanted to go but interesting.  I tend to think the author meant it as fictional and whoever compiled the canon took it as historical.

[Orthodox Christian]

On 7/26/2022 at 2:59 AM, Tacenda said:

Didn't they just find out that the Dead Sea Scrolls are forgeries? https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/museum-of-the-bible-dead-sea-scrolls-forgeries#:~:text=The Museum of the Bible houses 16 purported Dead Sea,16 fragments are modern forgeries.

Not according to the article. I believe it's referring to fragments acquired by the Museum of the Bible, not the original fragments, which are held in Israel.🙂

[Benjamin McGuire]

On 7/28/2022 at 12:17 AM, jerryp48 said:

Thanks for that link.  A little deeper than I wanted to go but interesting.  I tend to think the author meant it as fictional and whoever compiled the canon took it as historical.

Isn't it the point to be a little deeper? One of the fascinating things about scripture - as a genre of its own - is that our cultural understanding of it changes. Unlike the textual development of the Old Testament, we have amazing manuscript evidence for the production of the D&C and its individual sections. It was fairly fluid. Mormonism's view of scripture today is quite different from Mormonism's view of scripture 200 years ago - we have effectively embraced a Protestant view of scripture (at least in practice), and especially with regard to modern scripture (the D&C, the PoGP, and the BoM). But these views were not held by Joseph Smith or any of the earliest Mormons with their restorationist theology. For them, the text had a great deal more flexibility, and it was meant to be corrected and updated (new scripture as well as old). Understanding the history of scripture in early Mormonism helps me understand how a work like the Book of Esther could become a part of the canon.

Ben