What is Purim about anyway
Arel Weisberg
pfeffer) wrote:
> The theory that the Book of Esther is related to a Babylonian
> myth has been around for some time. It seems to be based on little
> more than the names of Mordecai and ESther -- AFAIK no one has
> identified the myth or explained why Jews would have wanted to adapt it.
If there is no reason, then why propose the possibility. My beef is that
some scholars will go out of their way to debunk the historical aspects of
the Bible with essentially no proof. This animosity towards religious
teaching seems to affect some people's "unbiased" search for truth in
their studies.
> Intercultural adaptation of religious stories is not unheard of.
> To take a non-controversial example, one of the great works of
> Byzantine Christian literature is Barlaam and Jehosaphat, which
> scholars have shown was actually adapted from a Buddhist story.
> While I have no special knowledge of this field, I believe there are
> well documented cases of stories of Christian saints which derive
> from earlier pagan tales.
> If one is prepared to treat some Biblical narratives as stories
> rather than as history, Noah's flood would present a pretty clear
> example of a Jewish adaptation of a pagan story.
> Describing these borrowings as "stealing legends" involves a
> notion of property rights in tales which I think is not widely
> accepted among scholars of folklore.
Not being knowledgable in this field, I really can't argue your point. I
also understand that an academic would not want to ascribe to a
supernatural being that capabilities mentioned in legends. But the story
of Esther is different. No miracle is mentioned. Specific names of
people in the royal palace and other details of Persian life are given.
The story makes the unbelievable claim an entire people could have been
wiped out in one day. Would any story teller make up a story that is so
easy to dispute? The story itself mentions that copies of the story were
circulated around the kingdom and put into the royal history books.
> : And lastly, lets assume for the moment that the story of Esther is false.
> : Recall that the story states that the decree to kill all the Jews of the
> : Persian empire was sent all the provinces of Persia. Now, if the story is
> : false, don't you think that some group of Jews in the empire, upon hearing
> : the story (even a generation or two later) would see the lie? The scope
> : of a conspiracy to pull a lie like that over on a people spread around the
> : empire would have to be immense.
>
> You are assuming that (1) the Book of Esther was written within a
> generation or two of the events described in it; (2) it was
> distributed in that period outside the circle of its author; (3)
> readers took it as claiming to be historically accurate; and (4) if
> objections to its historicity had been raised, either we would have
> records of the objections, or the book would have been discredited
> and never been canonized.
Once again, do you think a book that claims to have been disseminated
amoung the entire Jewish population would dare lie? It makes no sense to
me. If I was going to create or adapt a legend to glorify the Jewish
people, I'd make it as believable as possible. I'd certainly leave out
easily verifiable facts. How many other legends are so detailed as
Esther?
> These assumptions may be correct, but they are not self-evidently
> so. (1) The beginning of Esther "This happened in the days of
> Ahasuerus" and "In those days" could indicate that the book is telling
> a story of the distant past; (2) although Second Maccabees refers to a
> Feast of Mordecai, there is no reference to Mordecai or Esther in Ben
> Sirach's list of Jewish heroes (Ecclesiasticus, second century B.C.E.)
> and no copy of Esther was found at Qumran (the only book of the Bible
> not represented); (3) the concept of a historical romance may have
> been known in the Second Temple period, as for example the Book of
> Judith; (4) while we know from Christian sources that there were
> attacks on the authenticity of the Book of Daniel, AFAIK these are not
> recorded in Jewish sources; the Talmud does record, though, that the
> canonicity of Esther was disputed.
Each of your points are debatable.
Point (1): If the story was written after Ahasuerus died then the opening
seems perfectly appropriate. Even if it was written in its final form
before Ahasuerus died, perhaps historical records were written in that
style?
Point (2): I can't comment, for lack of knowledge, on your references.
But it seems to me that in a country under the control of the Romans, a
story about Jews killing their enemies might not be favorably looked upon
by the authorities.
Point (3): I'm not sure what you mean here. I think that many of the much
older books of the Bible have historical romances in them. How about
David and Bat-Sheva for example, or Judah and Tamar.
Point (4): I think there may have been debate on whether or not Esther
was written with "Ruach Hakodesh" (i.e. Divinely inspired text). But I
doubt there is any debate on whether or not the events occured.
Arel Weisberg
weis...@princeton.edu
http://ncd1901.cfd.princeton.edu/People/Arel_Weisberg.html
Herman Rubin
Arel Weisberg <weis...@princeton.edu> wrote:
>In response to my question about why the Jews would need to borrow
>stories: In article <3k7o6u$1a...@b.stat.purdue.edu>,
>hru...@b.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) wrote:
>> These deities were Babylonian, not Persian. My own guess is that this
>> was a common festival during the Captivity, and that the reason was
>> forgotten. A rather long time later, this Judification of the story
>> got spread, and like many of the Midrashim, became accepted. This
>> period in Jewish history is largely devoid of any information whatever.
.......................
>While certianly informative, your response doesn't answer my question.
>Why borrow from your oppressors' group of legends?
It is by no means clear how much oppression was present. The Temple was
destroyed, and they could not perform the sacrifices. It is not even
clear whether the entire population was moved to Babylonia, or only the
leaders. It seems that the synagogue service arose in the Captivity,
so that there were limits to the oppression. From the Tanakh, it seems
that Nebuchadnezzar was far more concerned with Judea being a center for
revolt than with putting down the Jews, and they may even have been
treated quite well except for the prevention of sacrifices.
>Then, in response to my question as to how the Jewish leadership could
>fake a story in which the entire Jewish people are under threat of death:
Was it done by the leadership, or was it a folk tale which got modified by
the leadership for political purposes? Getting Ahashuerus into it may have
scored political points with the rulers.
>> It is not clear that the Jewish community did more than barely exist from
>> the time of the Captivity until Ezra and Nehemiah. The defeat of the
>> Babylonians by the Persians was more than a century before Ezra. Did
>> Darius restore the Temple, or was this also invented in the time of Ezra?
>> Did Ezra, the priest and scribe, write this when he compiled other parts
>> of the Tanakh? Some have claimed that he was the redactor of the Torah,
>> putting the various parts together. There are few, if any, Jewish documents
>> available from that period or earlier.
>Still not an answer. If Mordechai was among those who returned to Israel
>with Ezra, then not much time passed, certainly not enough to forget the
>threat of extinction.
There are cases where we can only conjecture. This is one of them. It is
very unlikely that anyone who had been in the court of Ahashueros was still
alive at the time Ezra and Nehemiah returned to build up Jerusalem.
We also have that Persian law required the queen to be Persian. There are
the names of Vashti and Haman, which seem to be taken from Elamite gods, and
this indicates real antiquity to the story. We have much more chance of
finding Babylonian or Assyrian writings on this than finding Jewish ones.
>Then [Prof., Dr., Mr.] Rubin responds:
>> >The more I think about it, the more I'm curious as to how you can justify
>> >your beliefs.
>> The things that you're li'ble
>> to read in the Bible;
>> They ain't necessarily so.
>Granted. But when the facts look extremely difficult to fake, I think the
>story deserves serious attention. Compare the story of Purim to other
>famous legends. How many claim to affect an entire people? Most legends
>are about incredible or miraculous acts by one person in front of only a
>few viewers.
If there was not an actual armed destruction as it states, there were
only acts before a few viewers.
--
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
Phone: (317)494-6054
hru...@stat.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet)
{purdue,pur-ee}!a.stat!hrubin(UUCP)
Kitten Wah
independent verification as to whether Purim ever occurred. There's no
evidence that it did, and a mountain of evidence that it didn't.
As to the question of why a group of people would borrow their oppressor's
legends, don't we have a perfect case like that in the U.S.--the black
slaves, who took (were force fed) Christianity by their masters? That
should take care of that irrelevancy. When your own myths don't
sufficiently explain your current catastrophe, you are likely to take
ideas from whatever's clever in the environment.
BTW, why do the names Esther and Mordecai sound suspiciously like Ishtar
and Marduk?
James Kahn
>Gentlemen, What this basically boils down to is whether there is any
>independent verification as to whether Purim ever occurred. There's no
>evidence that it did, and a mountain of evidence that it didn't.
Perhaps I missed something in this thread, but I certainly never saw
"a mountain of evidence" that the events in the Book of Esther did
not occur. I'm not even sure how there could be evidence of something
_never_ having occurred, except in the form of the absence of positive of
evidence that it did occur (in which case the last sentence quoted
above is redundant).
As far as I've seen, the evidence against the story is about like
the evidence that Mark Fuhrman planted the evidence against O.J.:
there's not much besides an alternative theory. I'm not sure I'd
call the ability to construct an alternative theory "evidence".
--Jim
--
ka...@troi.cc.rochester.edu |
ka...@finance.wharton.upenn.edu |
Robert Rubinoff
Arel Weisberg <weis...@princeton.edu> wrote:
>Not being knowledgable in this field, I really can't argue your point. I
>also understand that an academic would not want to ascribe to a
>supernatural being that capabilities mentioned in legends. But the story
>of Esther is different. No miracle is mentioned. Specific names of
>people in the royal palace and other details of Persian life are given.
>The story makes the unbelievable claim an entire people could have been
>wiped out in one day. Would any story teller make up a story that is so
>easy to dispute? The story itself mentions that copies of the story were
>circulated around the kingdom and put into the royal history books.
My understanding is that the main reason people doubt the historicity of the
Esther story is two-fold:
a) Some of the details contradict what is known about the Persian Empire from
other sources. (In particular, there were explicit restrictions on who could
be the Queen, and Esther did not meet them even remotely.)
b) There is no record of anything like the events in the story (or, aside from
Ahasveros/Xerxes, any of the individuals) in surviving Persian documents.
Now, this is not absolutely irrefutable. For (a), it could be that there are
mistakes in what we know about Persia, or that variation was wider than we
thought. Or perhaps we are misinterpreting the details in the Megillah (e.g.
perhaps Esther's title of "Queen" didn't really mean "the official main consort
of the Emperor", but rather some lesser rank within the royal "harem"). For
(b), well, obviously we don't have copies of all the records of the Persian
Empire.
It's entirely possible that we may discover documents that prove a historical
basis for the Megillah (e.g. a copy of the royal decrees, or a copy of the
record book indicating how Mordechai saved Ahashveros from a murder plot).
However, the best picture current scholarship can put together of the history
and culture of Persia strongly suggests that the megillah is at best only
loosely based on real events.
Caveat: this is not a field in which I am an expert; I am only repeating what I
have been told by scholars more knowledgabe than I am.
Robert
Arel Weisberg
(Herman Rubin) wrote (about the oppressed Jews taking legends from their
Babylonian oppressors):
> It is by no means clear how much oppression was present. The Temple was
> destroyed, and they could not perform the sacrifices. It is not even
> clear whether the entire population was moved to Babylonia, or only the
> leaders. It seems that the synagogue service arose in the Captivity,
> so that there were limits to the oppression. From the Tanakh, it seems
> that Nebuchadnezzar was far more concerned with Judea being a center for
> revolt than with putting down the Jews, and they may even have been
> treated quite well except for the prevention of sacrifices.
Read the book of Eicha (Lamentations) if you want a first hand account of the
awesome devastation of the Jewish spirit when the first temple was
destroyed. I can't imagine the Jews of the time taking to their
conquerer's legends.
Then he goes on:
> >Then, in response to my question as to how the Jewish leadership could
> >fake a story in which the entire Jewish people are under threat of death:
>
> Was it done by the leadership, or was it a folk tale which got modified by
> the leadership for political purposes? Getting Ahashuerus into it may have
> scored political points with the rulers.
An answer? Lets say it was a folk tale. Who would believe it if they
didn't have to protect themselves against the antisemites of the time? As
far getting Ahashuerus into it, who else could sign royal decrees?
Then in response to why detailed facts would be made up and put into a
legend, whereas they are not necessary for the story, and could easily be
checked, the response is:
> There are cases where we can only conjecture. This is one of them. It is
> very unlikely that anyone who had been in the court of Ahashueros was still
> alive at the time Ezra and Nehemiah returned to build up Jerusalem.
>
> We also have that Persian law required the queen to be Persian. There are
> the names of Vashti and Haman, which seem to be taken from Elamite gods, and
> this indicates real antiquity to the story. We have much more chance of
> finding Babylonian or Assyrian writings on this than finding Jewish ones.
But it is likely that records of the time still survived then! Also, as
monarchies tend to be nepotistic, children of these people certainly were
around, and probably in positions of power.
The actual names of the people in the story may not be the names they
used. This is even indicated in the Megillah itself where it says that
Esther's name was Hadassah, but she is called Esther instead. Why? I can
think of two answers. 1) The name Esther comes from the Hebew root of "to
hide", and this is the major theme of the holiday, that G-d's presence was
hidden, yet he protected us 2) It was more goyish! Maybe it was supposed
to sound like Ishtar so that no one would suspect her origins, and she
could keep them a secret, JUST LIKE THE STORY SAYS!.
And lastly, we still name our children after Moses and David (and
countless others) thousands of years after they lived. Why shouldn't
others? Especially since they were royalty (or close) they were very
likely to have taken godlike names.
Then in response to my question of why doubt the Megillah's story? After
all thousands of the empire's citizens were killed. Most legends are
about singular people performing miraculous acts before relatively few
viewers:
> If there was not an actual armed destruction as it states, there were
> only acts before a few viewers.
Go ahead and fake the deaths of thousands and thousands of people and try
to get away with it.
I still don't see a rational refutation of the story. Especially a
refutation based on Jews borrowing the legends of the dominating people of
the time.
Arel Weisberg
Wah) wrote:
> Gentlemen, What this basically boils down to is whether there is any
> independent verification as to whether Purim ever occurred. There's no
> evidence that it did, and a mountain of evidence that it didn't.
Please elaborate on this mountain of evidence that you know about.
> As to the question of why a group of people would borrow their oppressor's
> legends, don't we have a perfect case like that in the U.S.--the black
> slaves, who took (were force fed) Christianity by their masters? That
> should take care of that irrelevancy. When your own myths don't
> sufficiently explain your current catastrophe, you are likely to take
> ideas from whatever's clever in the environment.
Christianity is not an American myth. If blacks in the United States had
created a myth about a black Christopher Columbus, or Mayflower, then I
would agree with you.
> BTW, why do the names Esther and Mordecai sound suspiciously like Ishtar
> and Marduk?
To repeat from my previous post: The names in the Megillah, like in many
other places in the Bible, are not necessarily the names people went by,
but are used to illustrate a point. Take the case of Esther for example.
The story itself says that Esther's name was changed from Hadassah to
Esther. Why? Two reasons I though of/heard: 1) Esther comes from the
hebrew root of "to hide", and this theme, that G-d was hidden yet
protected us, is a major part of the holiday. 2) Since Esther wanted to
hide her Jewish origins (like it says repeatedly in the Megillah) she may
have changed her name to a more goyish one.
As for Mordecai, I'll need some help from people more knowledgable than
I. But I think the point is proved from the previous paragraph.
Arel Weisberg
(Robert Rubinoff) wrote:
> It's entirely possible that we may discover documents that prove a historical
> basis for the Megillah (e.g. a copy of the royal decrees, or a copy of the
> record book indicating how Mordechai saved Ahashveros from a murder plot).
> However, the best picture current scholarship can put together of the history
> and culture of Persia strongly suggests that the megillah is at best only
> loosely based on real events.
My original beef with the poster that claimed that the story of Purim is
based on Persian/Babylonian legends, was that there was no real basis for
that hypothesis. Many scholars seem to have a desire to discredit
biblical stories with the flimsyist of evidence and conjecture.
I never said that there was proof positive of the events in the Megillah.
I merely said that the story seems much more plausible to me than the back
handed put down "it was simply a variation on a pagan legend". An any
scholar worth the paper his PhD thesis was written on should be able to
see that.
Kitten Wah
points out various aspects of related in the Scroll of Esther that could
never have occurred. I'm limited in time as to what I can relate here,
but one of them is that the king of Persia was only allowed to marry into
one of 7 (or 8) royal Persian families. He couldn't have married a Jewish
woman anymore than Prince Charles could. If he had, there would certainly
have been mention of it in a contemporary non-Jewish source.
There is none.
yehuda silver
: In article <3k9sdl$q...@al.skidmore.edu>, apfe...@saims.skidmore.edu (alan
: pfeffer) wrote:
: > The theory that the Book of Esther is related to a Babylonian
: > myth has been around for some time. It seems to be based on little
: > more than the names of Mordecai and ESther -- AFAIK no one has
: > identified the myth or explained why Jews would have wanted to adapt it.
: If there is no reason, then why propose the possibility. My beef is that
: some scholars will go out of their way to debunk the historical aspects of
: the Bible with essentially no proof. This animosity towards religious
: teaching seems to affect some people's "unbiased" search for truth in
: their studies.
:
: > Intercultural adaptation of religious stories is not unheard of.
What is really "bugging" these pagan "a.k.a." "new-age"
anti-semites a.k.a. "p.c."
Is that the anti semtites were destroyed before they could exterminate,
Hashem's Jews!
The Rambam, in the "iggeres Taiman" points out, that the "root cause"
of anti-semitism, is their dep down knowlegde of Hashem's "bris" with the
Jews
and their desire to uproot it!
thus while neither the xtians nor the Muslims could care less about Jerusalem
as long as it was "desolate"
it suddendly becomes important if the "Jews" get near!
As hagaon Rav Y.D. soloveitchik put it:
"the Goyim's only concern with Jerusalem is that the Jews shouldn't have
it, because dddep down they realize the FUTURE that will come from
Jerusalem"!
Unfortunately some self-hating people of "jewish extraction" (as they put it)
feel just like any other anti-semite!
The STUPIDIST insult is when these anti-semites
cvall themselves "academic, objective, scholars"
a.k.a. "less than Bilam's donkey!
yehuda silver
: Jim, in a recent article in The Jewish Sentinel, a professor at the JTS
: points out various aspects of related in the Scroll of Esther that could
: never have occurred. I'm limited in time as to what I can relate here
It's no wonder that conservative self-hating Jews
who reject Hashem and his Torah
also reject the idea that anti-semites could be destroyed before they
exterminate Jews!
I'll bet this ignoramous "ethnic studies" "scholar" who hates Judaism and
Jews as much as any unqulified ignorant "ethinic studies scholar" like
Loeonard Jeffrries and his JTS "collegues"
feels that "no justice no peace"
means that anti-semitic savages have a "right" to exterminate Jews,
and that if Hashem , our only friend,
"lynches on a tree 50 amos tall" the anti semite
it's
Not
Politically correct!
D S Levene
apologies if my comments here repeat points already made by others]
Arel Weisberg (weis...@princeton.edu) wrote:
: hru...@b.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) wrote:
: > The things that you're li'ble
: > to read in the Bible;
: > They ain't necessarily so.
: Granted. But when the facts look extremely difficult to fake, I think the
: story deserves serious attention. Compare the story of Purim to other
: famous legends. How many claim to affect an entire people? Most legends
: are about incredible or miraculous acts by one person in front of only a
: few viewers.
This argument is, of course, a famous one, derived, I believe, from
mediaeval disputations. However, there are many counterexamples to it,
and its premises are flawed.
For counterexamples, let me offer the first five books of Livy,
purporting to recount the history of early Rome down to c.387 B.C.E.
Livy was accepted by Romans themselves as the authoritative historian of
their state, and the stories in his work were generally believed; they
do indeed include many accounts of remarkable events, both natural and
supernatural, that took place in front of the whole people. Yet a large
portion of them are fiction. A couple of examples: Camillus' miraculous
rescue of Rome from the Gauls, and his subsequent defeat of them in battle
(Livy 5.48-50): we can trace the invention of this story by examining
earlier Greek accounts of the period. Or consider the spurious "second
college of decemvirs" (Livy 3.38-49), who supposedly tyrannised the whole
Roman state, until being dramatically overthrown in a public revolution:
the story, however, makes little sense given what we know about Rome at
that period, and contains numerous elements pointing to the conditions
of a later period. For both of these, see R.M. Ogilvie's standard
commentary ad loc.; many more instances could be given, from Livy and
elsewhere.
Why do such stories gain acceptance? The basic point is that
they appear plausible to people of a later period - especially if, as is
often the case with Livy and is also true of the Book of Esther, they
provide the aetiology for already existing practices, which would
otherwise be unexplained. No one is going to worry that they had
not encountered the story or the book earlier, given the huge gaps in
general historical knowledge and the extremely patchy nature of ancient
book-distribution: people might be ignorant of whole centuries of
their earlier history, and would be aware that even major and
remarkable events could have taken place about which they knew nothing;
likewise, a text could exist for centuries before slowly seeping into
general circulation. A text, especially one purporting to be old, that
seemed to fill in some of the gaps in a plausible fashion would be
welcomed, not questioned.
My suspicion is that often people who employ arguments like yours
(a) forget that a practice can precede the text that purports to explain
it, and that the existence of the practice can itself be the major thing
that validates that text for its readers; (b) assume a society broadly
comparable to our own in terms of access to texts and information; and
(c) assume that the historical status ascribed to a story or text remains
stable across time: whereas in fact a story devised and originally accepted
as a total or partial fiction may, as it circulates, progressively acquire
historical status (in our own century the "Angel of Mons" provides a
useful parallel).
On the invention and acceptance of "historical" stories in the
ancient world, I recommend T.P. Wiseman "Clio's Cosmetics"; Wiseman is
mainly talking about Rome, but much of his discussion is applicable more
generally.
But one does not in fact need to look to Rome to demonstrate these
points: one needs simply examine the history of the acceptance of the Book
of Esther itself. It does not seem to have been translated into Greek
with the rest of the Tanach in the 3rd century B.C.E. (itself an interesting
point); the Greek translation transmitted with the Septuagint contains a
brief statement to the effect that the book was translated, and introduced
to Alexandria from Jerusalem, apparently for the first time, in the early
1st century B.C.E. - 400 years after the events it supposedly describes.
We must remember that Alexandria was not an isolated community:
it was the largest Jewish diaspora community of its day, situated within
the boundaries of Ahasuerus' empire; the city was founded about 130 years
after his death, and attracted Jews from across the world; it had for
much of its history substantial links with Jerusalem. Yet its Jewish
inhabitants accepted the historicity of a book supposedly covering
major events in their own area, despite receiving it for the first time
centuries later. I can see no reason why those receiving the Hebrew Esther
in (say) the early 2nd century B.C.E. should have had substantially more
inclination to doubt its authenticity.
David Levene
Department of Classics
University of Durham
D S Levene
: In article <3k9sdl$q...@al.skidmore.edu>, apfe...@saims.skidmore.edu (alan
: pfeffer) wrote:
: > a story of the distant past; (2) although Second Maccabees refers to a
: > Feast of Mordecai, there is no reference to Mordecai or Esther in Ben
: > Sirach's list of Jewish heroes (Ecclesiasticus, second century B.C.E.)
: > and no copy of Esther was found at Qumran (the only book of the Bible
: > not represented);
: Point (2): I can't comment, for lack of knowledge, on your references.
: But it seems to me that in a country under the control of the Romans, a
: story about Jews killing their enemies might not be favorably looked upon
: by the authorities.
Ben Sirach was well before the Roman conquest, as were many of the Qumran
texts. More importantly, Josephus was able to give an extended account
of the Esther story in "Jewish Antiquities" Book 11, written in the late
1st century C.E., at a time after the Jewish revolt, when Jews were
subject to considerable repression. This alone would indicate that there
was unlikely to be any penalty attached to circulating and discussing the
book in earlier periods, when repression was less; thus Alan Pfeffer's
point remains a good one.
Art Kamlet
yehuda silver <ysi...@news.dorsai.org> wrote:
>
>I'll bet this ignoramous "ethnic studies" "scholar" who hates Judaism and
>Jews as much as any unqulified ignorant "ethinic studies scholar" like
I fear if Yehuda continues to post such messages, readers will
believe he has shown and demonstrated his skills and expertese on
only these two topics: ignorance and hatred
Which of the mitzvot is he furthering by such hateful spewings?
--
Art Kamlet AT&T Bell Laboratories, Columbus a.s.k...@att.com
Art Kamlet
yehuda silver <ysi...@news.dorsai.org> wrote:
>
>The STUPIDIST insult is when these anti-semites
>cvall themselves "academic, objective, scholars"
>a.k.a. "less than Bilam's donkey!
I've often been intrigued by Bilaam's donkey, or ass as it's often
translated. [ Numbers 22 ]
Bilaam himself was a well-respected prophet, and even today he is
considered to be one of a very few non-Jewish prophets. An evil
man, punished with death for his evil, but a prophet none-the-less.
Paresha Barak -- which Hertz speculates was at one time known as
the [ separate ] Book of Bilaam, introduces us to the concept of
a satan, and in this paresha we see Bilaam pronounce the words of
our daily prayer, ma tovu.
And yet Bilaam's ass seems to be smarter than Bilaam ha'navi himself.
And in Mishna Avot (5) we learn that the mouth of Bilaam's ass --
its ability to speak -- was so important to the rest of creation,
that G-d created it as one of only 10 things (some say a few more)
which were created on the eve of the very first Shabbat of
creation. The ass saw and recognized the angel of the Lord when
even Bilaam did not. And the ass gave Bilaam wise advice, indeed.
Bilaam's ass may have been the wisest of all animals, ever.
To be associated with Bilaam's ass would seem to me quite an honor.
So when Yehuda Silver thought: How shall I honor one who has
earned the titles of "academic, objective, scholar[ship]" he
finds quite an interesting way to do so.
Kitten Wah
David R. Brill
> According to Esther 2:6, Mordechai had been taken into exile with
>King Y'chonyah: there are various versions of this king's name in the
>Tanach, but he is certainly identical with the king called in II Kings
>"Y'hoyachin" - compare Jeremiah 29:2 with the narrative in Kings. According
>to II Kings 25:12, Y'hoyachin's exile occurred in the eighth year of
>Nebuchadnezzar's reign - i.e. 597 B.C.E.
> If Mordechai was a newborn baby at the time of his exile, he
>would therefore have been 123 years old at the time of Haman's casting lots
>in the twelfth year of Ahasuerus' reign (Esther 3:7) - i.e. 474 B.C.E.
>This strikes me as rather unlikely, even given the relatively inactive role
>that Mordechai plays in the work.
While the text is perhaps a bit ambiguous on this point, it would seem to
state that it was Kish, the great-grandfather of Mordechai, and not Mordechai
himself, who was exiled during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar. Indeed, the JPS
translation makes this reading more or less explicit:
"In the fortress Shushan lived a Jew by the name of Mordecai, son of Jair,
son of Shimei son of Kish, a Benjaminite. [Kish] had been exiled from
Jerusalem in the group that was carried into exile along with King Jeconia
of Judah, which had been driven into exile by King Nebuchadnezzar of
Babylon." (Esther 2:5 - 2:6)
Great-grandfather Kish was exiled a hundred years before; great-grandson
Mordechai is a young man at the time of the Purim events. No problem.
With all due respect to Dr. Levene, by placing Mordechai, rather than Kish,
in the role of the immigrant, he creates an implausibility where one doesn't
have to exist.
___) _______________________________________________________________
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\_____ \__ \______ \______ \______ \__ \_______ |
\____\ \_| \_____\ \_____\ \_____\ \_| \______\ |
/ | | | | | | |
/ | o | | | | |
/ | ______|_ ______|_ | | |
/ | /_______/ /_______/ | | |
|
David R. Brill dbr...@gandalf.rutgers.edu ____________________________|
seth rosenthal
: Gentlemen, What this basically boils down to is whether there is any
I would add that Hamen and Vashti are directly the names of the
other two gods in that Babylonian legend.
As I have said many times before, Archeologists have access to the
imperial records of Persia. They documented them quite extensively,
and the first Jewish queen occurs around the 4th century C.E.
Ahasueras is a thinly veiled form of Ataxerxes, and none of his
wives came from any family other than officially sanctioned
Persian non-Jewish families.
As to why have a falacious book under the Romans, this is a good
question is probably related to the appearance of
'the miracle of lights' as a part of Channukah. Note, the Maccabean
story as documented in the Book of Maccabbees is likely to be historic,
but the miracle of the oil first appears around the same time
as the Purim story. For those who want to investigate this from
a historical viewpoint, I would recommend starting with Otto Eissfeldt's
"The Old Testament, An Introduction". Also the Jewish Commentary
for Bible Readers, The Five Scrolls. Both have interesting discussions
of the authenticity of Purim.
My own opinion is that during the period of Roman takeover (this was
not a conquest, but a gradual giveaway by the descendants of the
Hasmoneans), these legends were invented to try to shore up the weakening
position of the monarchy among the populace. As to whether the Romans
would appreciate the revolutionary nature of the tale, how did the
Austrians feel about "A Masked Ball" and what did Verdi do about it?
Seth Rosenthal
Disclaimer: All opinions are my own not my employers'.
Samuel R. Kaplan
Amos Wittenberg <am...@metallia.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>BS"D
>In article <3kij7b$4...@newsbf02.news.aol.com> kitt...@aol.com "Kitten
>Wah" writes:
>
>>BTW, why do the names Esther and Mordecai sound suspiciously like Ishtar
>>and Marduk?
>
>Because both names are actually Babylonian names derived from the names
>of those pagan deities.
>
>The G'mara in Chullin (139b) says (quoting by heart, please check
>accuracy of quote):
>
>"Moshe min hatorah minayin? B'sgaggam hu basar. Haman min hatorah
>minayin? Hamin ha`etz. Ester min hatorah minayin? V'anokhi haster 'astir
>panai. Mord'khai min hatorah minayin? Dikh'tiv: mor d'ror; um'targ'minan
>mera dakhya."
>
>[Were is Moshe found in the Torah? "For he is flesh" (Gen.6:3). Were
>is Haman found in the Torah? "<Have you then eaten> from the tree ..?"
>(Gen 3:11). Where is Esther found in the Torah? "And I will surely
>hide My face.." (Deut. 31:18). Where is Mordechai found in the Torah?
>As it is written: "Pure myrrh" (Exod.30:23); and we translate <this
>phrase into Aramaic as> "mera dakhya"]
>
>This passage is baffling in a number of respects, but before we can
>understand the difficulties posed by this passage, we first need to
>understand how the G'mara finds these four names mentioned in the Torah.
(Amos's treatise on Hebrew names deleted)
I believe that this thread on the historic reality of Purim is
confusing "truth" and "fact." What is more important than whether
Purim had a historical reality is whether it expresses a truth about
people, particularly the Jewish people. Hold a novel in your hand--is
it truth or fact? Which is more important?
The myths that peoples live by are often more important than the facts
from which those myths arose. See Georges Sorels on the role of myth.
--
*************************************************************************
Sam Kaplan
"Maturity is no longer seeing every passing temptation
as a missed opportunity."
Arel Weisberg
<D.S.L...@durham.ac.uk> wrote in response to my point about it being
difficult to fake legend affecting an entire people:
> This argument is, of course, a famous one, derived, I believe, from
> mediaeval disputations. However, there are many counterexamples to it,
> and its premises are flawed.
>
> For counterexamples, let me offer the first five books of Livy,
> purporting to recount the history of early Rome down to c.387 B.C.E.
> Livy was accepted by Romans themselves as the authoritative historian of
> their state, and the stories in his work were generally believed; they
> do indeed include many accounts of remarkable events, both natural and
> supernatural, that took place in front of the whole people. Yet a large
> portion of them are fiction. A couple of examples: Camillus' miraculous
> rescue of Rome from the Gauls, and his subsequent defeat of them in battle
> (Livy 5.48-50): we can trace the invention of this story by examining
> earlier Greek accounts of the period. Or consider the spurious "second
> college of decemvirs" (Livy 3.38-49), who supposedly tyrannised the whole
> Roman state, until being dramatically overthrown in a public revolution:
> the story, however, makes little sense given what we know about Rome at
> that period, and contains numerous elements pointing to the conditions
> of a later period. For both of these, see R.M. Ogilvie's standard
> commentary ad loc.; many more instances could be given, from Livy and
> elsewhere.
Not being an expert, it is hard to comment on Livy. But let me ask: If
many of Livy's stories are untrue, how did he get away with lying? Wasn't
there someone there to ask him to show proof? Perhaps the stories were
the basis for the Roman leadership's claim to power at Livy's time? Or
maybe they were the basis for the subjugation of an element of the Roman
Empire?
> Why do such stories gain acceptance? The basic point is that
> they appear plausible to people of a later period - especially if, as is
> often the case with Livy and is also true of the Book of Esther, they
> provide the aetiology for already existing practices, which would
> otherwise be unexplained. No one is going to worry that they had
> not encountered the story or the book earlier, given the huge gaps in
> general historical knowledge and the extremely patchy nature of ancient
> book-distribution: people might be ignorant of whole centuries of
> their earlier history, and would be aware that even major and
> remarkable events could have taken place about which they knew nothing;
> likewise, a text could exist for centuries before slowly seeping into
> general circulation. A text, especially one purporting to be old, that
> seemed to fill in some of the gaps in a plausible fashion would be
> welcomed, not questioned.
Do you believe then that the Jewish people had some kind of custom to give
food to their neighbors and have a festive meal one month and one day
before Passover, and they were looking for a justification? I certainly
agree with your point that people were ignorant of history. But I would
like to see MOTIVE. Why invent a story like Esther? It has no overt
miracles in it. It reads like a soap opera rather than a biblical story.
It has countless useless facts. It doesn't give any power to any group.
It claims to be the origin of ancient practices like giving money to the
poor and food to your neighbors - hardly thrilling. You might argue that
it is merely a spiritually upifting story for the Jews created at a time
when they were downtrodden. But then why no divine action? Surely,
according to your hypothesis, the events alleged to occur happened so far
before the story was disseminated, that a good miracle could have been
stuck in there.
> My suspicion is that often people who employ arguments like yours
> (a) forget that a practice can precede the text that purports to explain
> it, and that the existence of the practice can itself be the major thing
> that validates that text for its readers; (b) assume a society broadly
> comparable to our own in terms of access to texts and information; and
> (c) assume that the historical status ascribed to a story or text remains
> stable across time: whereas in fact a story devised and originally accepted
> as a total or partial fiction may, as it circulates, progressively acquire
> historical status (in our own century the "Angel of Mons" provides a
> useful parallel).
As best I know, ancient Jewish society was always organized around the
learned leaders of the communities. Synagogues are always built wherever
Jews go, at least every Jewish ruin I've been to had one. It is hard to
believe that a Jewish community could survive without one. So if an
educated leader exisited in the communities around the time of the
dissemination of a false Esther, I still maintain that it would be hard
for the story to gain acceptance. I don't think a traveller telling
stories in a Roman village is comparable.
> On the invention and acceptance of "historical" stories in the
> ancient world, I recommend T.P. Wiseman "Clio's Cosmetics"; Wiseman is
> mainly talking about Rome, but much of his discussion is applicable more
> generally.
>
> But one does not in fact need to look to Rome to demonstrate these
> points: one needs simply examine the history of the acceptance of the Book
> of Esther itself. It does not seem to have been translated into Greek
> with the rest of the Tanach in the 3rd century B.C.E. (itself an interesting
> point); the Greek translation transmitted with the Septuagint contains a
> brief statement to the effect that the book was translated, and introduced
> to Alexandria from Jerusalem, apparently for the first time, in the early
> 1st century B.C.E. - 400 years after the events it supposedly describes.
This is hardly conclusive evidence. The Talmud debates whether or not the
Story of Esther should be included in the Tanach. I would like to know
more about the "brief statement" you mentioned. Did it say that the text
known to us arrived in the 1st century B.C.E., or that ANY knowledge of
the story arrived then?
> We must remember that Alexandria was not an isolated community:
> it was the largest Jewish diaspora community of its day, situated within
> the boundaries of Ahasuerus' empire; the city was founded about 130 years
> after his death, and attracted Jews from across the world; it had for
> much of its history substantial links with Jerusalem. Yet its Jewish
> inhabitants accepted the historicity of a book supposedly covering
> major events in their own area, despite receiving it for the first time
> centuries later. I can see no reason why those receiving the Hebrew Esther
> in (say) the early 2nd century B.C.E. should have had substantially more
> inclination to doubt its authenticity.
Why would the population of Alexandria believe the story? This is the
crux of the problem for me. People were not idiots. Why would they
believe a brand new story that claims to be known by every Jew thoughout
the world? What were the rabbis of the time thinking when they "received"
the scroll from Jerusalem? "I guess my rebbe forget to tell me about this
holiday when the Jewish people were saved from extinction".
While historians such as yourself have an incredible number of facts at
your disposal, I find your explanation incomplete. You claim to be able
to disprove the authenticity of Esther, but you offer no explanation as to
how or why it becaome universally accepted among a basically well educated
populace.
Arel Weisberg
<D.S.L...@durham.ac.uk> wrote:
I was only hypothesizing. Thank you for correcting me. The inclusion of
Esther at Qumran is not problematic, as it was controversial for a long
time as to whether or not include Esther in the Tanach. Perhaps this is
also the reason for the mention of it to be left out of Ecclesiasticus?
Or maybe, Ben Sirach did not want to include a story about Jews killing
thousands of people in his exposition on wisdom and morality. Maybe, like
liberals of our time, he had a hard time with violence, even in self
defense. Also, has an entire Hebrew version of Ecclesiasticus been
found? Censorship could have occured in the translations.
I know that I haven't given any hard proof that Ben Sirach knew about
Purim. I'm only trying to show how it is plausible that Mordechai and
Esther could have been left out of his work.
Arel Weisberg
(seth rosenthal) wrote:
> Kitten Wah (kitt...@aol.com) wrote:
> : Gentlemen, What this basically boils down to is whether there is any
> : independent verification as to whether Purim ever occurred. There's no
> : evidence that it did, and a mountain of evidence that it didn't.
>
> : As to the question of why a group of people would borrow their oppressor's
> : legends, don't we have a perfect case like that in the U.S.--the black
> : slaves, who took (were force fed) Christianity by their masters? That
> : should take care of that irrelevancy. When your own myths don't
> : sufficiently explain your current catastrophe, you are likely to take
> : ideas from whatever's clever in the environment.
>
> : BTW, why do the names Esther and Mordecai sound suspiciously like Ishtar
> : and Marduk?
>
> I would add that Hamen and Vashti are directly the names of the
> other two gods in that Babylonian legend.
Not a good basis for suspicion. As I've written elsewhere in this thread,
the names in biblical texts are often changed for reasons that are not
immediately obvious.
> As I have said many times before, Archeologists have access to the
> imperial records of Persia. They documented them quite extensively,
> and the first Jewish queen occurs around the 4th century C.E.
> Ahasueras is a thinly veiled form of Ataxerxes, and none of his
> wives came from any family other than officially sanctioned
> Persian non-Jewish families.
Maybe Xerxes (note the name change from Ahaseurus, look in a commentary to
see the Talmudic derivation of Ahaseurus in Hebrew) didn't want anyone to
know that he took a Jewsish wife, so he had the scribes cover it up. I
think this is especially plausible in light of the fact that he was
"tricked" by Esther.
> As to why have a falacious book under the Romans, this is a good
> question is probably related to the appearance of
> 'the miracle of lights' as a part of Channukah. Note, the Maccabean
> story as documented in the Book of Maccabbees is likely to be historic,
> but the miracle of the oil first appears around the same time
> as the Purim story. For those who want to investigate this from
> a historical viewpoint, I would recommend starting with Otto Eissfeldt's
> "The Old Testament, An Introduction". Also the Jewish Commentary
> for Bible Readers, The Five Scrolls. Both have interesting discussions
> of the authenticity of Purim.
>
> My own opinion is that during the period of Roman takeover (this was
> not a conquest, but a gradual giveaway by the descendants of the
> Hasmoneans), these legends were invented to try to shore up the weakening
> position of the monarchy among the populace. As to whether the Romans
> would appreciate the revolutionary nature of the tale, how did the
> Austrians feel about "A Masked Ball" and what did Verdi do about it?
"A Masked Ball" was censored. I'm not sure what point you are trying to make.
Also, how does the story of Purim shore up the monarchy? Your points
don't answer those presented in other parts of this thread, like how was a
story that claims to be known by all, and is celebrated by a holiday, get
faked well enough to convince a population? etc....
Robert Rubinoff
Actually, Ahashweros is the Hebrew form of Xerxes. Artaxerxes in Hebrew is
"Artakhshasta". The Persian form of the name Xerxes/Ahashweros is actually
"Khshayarsh", which is not easy to say. So in Hebrew, they stuck an aleph at
the beginning, and in Greek they mixed up the letters a little. (I don't mean
that this was a deliberate act, just that that's the closest that Hebrew and
Greek speakers could come to the difficult Persian name.)
Simon Streltsov
: imperial records of Persia. They documented them quite extensively,
: and the first Jewish queen occurs around the 4th century C.E.
: Ahasueras is a thinly veiled form of Ataxerxes, and none of his
: wives came from any family other than officially sanctioned
: Persian non-Jewish families.
I have no knowledge on the subject, but Ahashverosh is
refered to Xerox (be it real one or photocopy!) not to
Ataxerox (last time I saw this ref. was Avigdor Miller
"Torah Nation". 1971)
So, start from there.
Simcha Streltsov, _Former_ Adar Rabbi of S.C.Soviet
-------------------------
please, only Kosher lePesach homentashen
all others will be returned unopened.
p.s. This sig expired, but nobody have sent me real
homentashen anyway
solomon taibi
professional linguists or who were educated in Hebrew, instead
of just knowing some (like me).
In this thread there has been much made of the presumed Persian
or Babylonian origin of the book of Esther. Some of this is
predicated on the similarity of the name "Esther" to that of
the Babylonian diety "Ishtar". Yet I know that in Hebrew
"Esther" is "Hadassah". So how did we get from "Hadassah"
to "Esther" in English, and does the name "Hadassah" have a
literal meaning in Hebrew?
Another Esther question: At Esther 1:14 in the King James version
it mentions someone named "Carshena" (one of the men at Ahashuerus'
big party). It seems to me in reading the Hebrew (admittedly my
knowledge is limited) that the name would be more accurately
tranliterated as "Krishna". Is this at all reasonable?
After all, it need not be *the* Krishna (although the chronology
is about right).
--
Solomon Taibi
tai...@matrix.newpaltz.edu
State University of New York College at New Paltz
New Paltz, New York 12561, United States of America
Marcos Frid
[deletions...]
: the Babylonian diety "Ishtar". Yet I know that in Hebrew
: "Esther" is "Hadassah". So how did we get from "Hadassah"
: to "Esther" in English, and does the name "Hadassah" have a
: literal meaning in Hebrew?
Esther is not the English translation of Hadassha. Read the whole Megillah;
Hadassah's Persian (civil, common, what-have-you) name was Esther.
It is quite common for Jews to have these dual namings. My Hebrew name
is Moshe Meir (Moshe=Moses, Meir=shining), and my civil name is Marcos, which
has no relation to either except for the "M" sound at the beginning.
Esther's Hebrew name is a flower, I think (sorry, my Hebrew dictionary is at
home).
The second question is too speculative and irrelevant to Judaism to answer.
Shalom,
Marcos Frid
-----------
Pascal MacProgrammer
>Yet I know that in Hebrew "Esther" is "Hadassah". So how did we get from
>"Hadassah" to "Esther" in English, and does the name "Hadassah" have a
>literal meaning in Hebrew?
The literal meaning of the common Hebrew noun "hadassah" is "myrtle".
Now Hadassah, neice of Mordechai, was chosen by the king to become the
new queen. He renamed her in Persian, and "Esther" means "Star". It's
neither a translation nor a modification of her Hebrew name. (Note that
Persian is an Indo-European language, which explains the similarity among
Persian "esther", Greek "aster", German "Stern", English "star", etc.)
>Another Esther question: At Esther 1:14 in the King James version it
>mentions someone named "Carshena" (one of the men at Ahashuerus' big
>party). It seems to me in reading the Hebrew (admittedly my knowledge is
>limited) that the name would be more accurately tranliterated as
>"Krishna".
The way it's pointed in my TN"K, it looks like it's pronounced
"kar-sh@-NA". Both the RESH and the SHIN have a sheva vowel, but
pronouncing them both silently would make a doubly-closed syllable in the
middle of a word, so at least one of them has to be pronounced. That's
definitely not a sheva with the initial KAF. The English translation on
the facing page (with transliterations of Hebrew names, rather than the
usual English forms) gives "Karshena".
Bottom line: Krishna is not mentioned in the Hebrew Scriptures!
--
==----= Steve MacGregor
([.] [.]) Phoenix, AZ
--------------------------oOOo--(_)--oOOo----------------------------------
Help stamp out, eliminate, and abolish redundancy!
alan pfeffer
disappeared fom my newsreader. Fortunately David Levene, who is far
more knowledgeable than I about this subject, has contributed
several informative posts. I add only such points as I can remember from
Ariel's comments.
D S Levene (D.S.L...@durham.ac.uk) wrote:
: Arel Weisberg (weis...@princeton.edu) wrote:
: : But it seems to me that in a country under the control of the Romans, a
: : story about Jews killing their enemies might not be favorably looked upon
: : by the authorities.
: Ben Sirach was well before the Roman conquest, as were many of the Qumran
: texts. More importantly, Josephus was able to give an extended account
: of the Esther story in "Jewish Antiquities" Book 11, written in the late
: 1st century C.E., at a time after the Jewish revolt, when Jews were
: subject to considerable repression. This alone would indicate that there
: was unlikely to be any penalty attached to circulating and discussing the
: book in earlier periods, when repression was less; thus Alan Pfeffer's
: point remains a good one.
I believe Ariel asked why the theory was ever developed in the
first place. To the best of my knowledge it it originated at the turn
of the century, when using comparative religion as a technique for
Biblcal interpretation was at its most popular. The theory also
conected Haman and Vashti with the Elamite deities Humba and Washti,
and Zeresh (Haman's wife) with the goddess Kirisha. Esther's Hebrew
name Hadassah was connected to the Babylonian word hadashtu, "bride."
This array seemed to some scholars too great to be mere coincidence.
As is often the case, later critical examination led to rejection
of many of these alleged correspondences. The Mordecai-Marduk and
Esther-Ishtar parallels remain unchallenged, but by themselves are
less impressive.
It is also worth noting that borrowing a story covers a range of
patterns. Some borrowings are simple copies. The medieval Maaseh
book of Jewish stories includes tales of Rabbis that are German
folktales with Jews substituted as the main characters. On the other
hand the relationship between the Babylonian flood story and the
Biblical one (for those willing to admit such a relationship) is one
of sharp religious contrast. The claim that Esther derived from a
Babylonian story was not necessarily a claim that it was nothing more
than a Babylonian story in Jewish guise.
To clarify briefly two points I made previously: first, the Book
of Esther is not self-dating. Its opening lines "This happened in the
days of Ahasuerus...In those days..." could be the equivalent of
modern book beginning "In the days of King William," or "When Jefferson
was President..." (See also the assertion in 9:28 that those days
are remembered in every generation). If the Book of Esther was
written a century or two after the events it purports to describe, who
would have known how accurate it was? David Levene has provided some
instructive Roman examples.
Second, one should consider the possibility that the early readers
of Esther regarded it as an historical fiction, the way we regard the
Three Musketeers. I mentioned that the Book of Judith may fall into
that category, as may some of the Daniel stories (Susanna, Bel and the
Dragon).
Alan Pfeffer
Skidmore College Department of Business
yehuda silver
: In article <D5rv7...@dorsai.org>,
: Kitten:
: >: Jim, in a recent article in The Jewish Sentinel, a professor at the JTS
: >: points out various aspects of related in the Scroll of Esther that could
: >: never have occurred. I'm limited in time as to what I can relate here
: Yehuda:
: >I'll bet this ignoramous "ethnic studies" "scholar" who hates Judaism and
: >Jews as much as any unqulified ignorant "ethinic studies scholar" like
: >Loeonard Jeffrries and his JTS "collegues"
: Yehuda, I'm "impressed." "Kitten" did NOt eVen "identify" the
: "jts" "scholar", but "you" Knew him well enough to know that "he"
: hates "Judaism" and Is an "ignoramous."
You do not understand very much about Judaism!
any jerk, who attacks the Bible, and Jewish tradition in general
and the Purim facts which all anti-semties deny for the obvious reasons
is obviously a ignorant "ethnics sstudies" "scholar" like "leonard jeffries"
The major differnce between leonard jeffries, woman's tuduies, gays
studies, "psudo studiies" scholars, and the so called "jewish etnic
studies psudo scholars'
is that the first group emotes Positivly about their subject and calls
these "emotions" scholarship, while the second group emotes NEGAVIVELy
and calls their emotions "scholship!
: On a more serious level, Yehuda, you realize that most of us ignore
: you most of the time.
I am flattered, You ignore the Bible, the Talmud and the Shucjan Aruch as
well. and are "positive" about a secualar self-hater like this JTS fool,
who attacks the bible! I am flatterered which group you put me in!
But you really should try checking the
: halakhot of loshon hora.
The halachot are very clear!
a JTS "scholar" is not protected by hilchos loshon hara like all those
who deny the 13 fundamentals of Judaism! The Sefer Chofetz Cahim, (the
authoritatve compilation on the subject! state that explicitly quoting
the Talmud and the Rambam!
Absenting that, try using a little
: common sense. You attack on this unnamed JTS faculty member
: did not raise any questions about what he allegedly said.
He denied the Bible, thati's enough!
: Eliot "What am _I_ doing defending a JTS faculty member" Shimoff
What a question? and YOU are asking it?
Perhaps it's not a question but an ANSWER!
Perhaps you should study the torah instead and become orthodox!
: --
: Eliot Shimoff (shi...@umbc.edu) | The way Shimoff teaches, and
: Proud saba of Tani, T'mima, | the way his students learn ...
: Moshe, and Hillel! | IT'S A PERFECT MATCH
: (Space reserved for new entries) |
yehuda silver
: In article <D5rv7...@dorsai.org>,
: yehuda silver <ysi...@news.dorsai.org> wrote:
: >
: >I'll bet this ignoramous "ethnic studies" "scholar" who hates Judaism and
: >Jews as much as any unqulified ignorant "ethinic studies scholar" like
: I fear if Yehuda continues to post such messages, readers will
: believe he has shown and demonstrated his skills and expertese on
: only these two topics: ignorance and hatred
: Which of the mitzvot is he furthering by such hateful spewings?
It's amazing that you are not bothered enough to "post a protest"
when some self hating ignoramous questions the veracity of the Bible
and the Jewish tradition and the facts mentioned in the Megillah!
That does NOT bother you!
Only when I protest and call that ignorant fool, a self-hating ignorant fool
for his attacing the bible and Judaism do you "protest"!
: --
yehuda silver
: : In article <3k9sdl$q...@al.skidmore.edu>, apfe...@saims.skidmore.edu (alan
: : pfeffer) wrote:
: : > a story of the distant past; (2) although Second Maccabees refers to a
: : > Feast of Mordecai, there is no reference to Mordecai or Esther in Ben
: : > Sirach's list of Jewish heroes (Ecclesiasticus, second century B.C.E.)
: : > and no copy of Esther was found at Qumran (the only book of the Bible
: : > not represented);
This shows how unreliable the books you are quoting from are!
: : Point (2): I can't comment, for lack of knowledge, on your references.
: : But it seems to me that in a country under the control of the Romans, a
: : story about Jews killing their enemies might not be favorably looked upon
: : by the authorities.
Ditto for "ethnic studies scholars"
as well as "self-hating" Jews!
Just look at Israel today, how the above reacts
when a Jewish soldier kills an attempted murderer in self-defense!
The Goyim and Jewish Goyim resent it very much when the anti-semites LOSE!
: Ben Sirach was well before the Roman conquest, as were many of the Qumran
: texts.
The ignorant fool who wrote the above, seems to be unaware that even
BEFORE "ben sirach"
Esther herself exchabged letters with the Sabhedrin about the wisdom
of leaving around the written record of the Magillah
for fear of provoking the Goyim!
the letters are recorded in the Talmud!
More importantly,
Everything the prophetes wrote is coming true
Contrary to the xrians, and the German Reform
"Berlin is the new Jerusalem
or american reform's "pittsburg platform
"We're BA-A-A-C K"
in Jerusalem!
Esther, like all biblical books are totally accurate
and the
Skeptics become one big joke after another!
P.S. as much as you resent it "fundamentalist JEWS"
are not only the Judaism of the past
but of the FUTURE as all demographics show!
Return to them before it's too late!
: David Levene
alan pfeffer
of David Levene:
: I was only hypothesizing. Thank you for correcting me. The inclusion of
: Esther at Qumran is not problematic, as it was controversial for a long
: time as to whether or not include Esther in the Tanach.
I think this explanation unlikely. Many works were found at
Qumran that were not included in the Tanach at all, such as Jubilees and
Enoch. For that matter, parts of Ben Sirach were found at Qumran, and
Ben Sirach did not make it into the Tanach either.
: Perhaps this is also the reason for the mention of it to be left
: out of Ecclesiasticus?
This is difficult to tell, since we have no records from Ben
Sirach's time about what he might have regarded as controversial. He
included a chapter in praise of the priest Simon ben Onias, a
post-exilic figure, for what that may indicate.
Another possibility is that there was a controversy over whether
the Esther story ever occurred, and that is why Ben Sirach did not
include it. But as I said, I do not know of any evidence on this score.
: Or maybe, Ben Sirach did not want to include a story about Jews killing
: thousands of people in his exposition on wisdom and morality. Maybe, like
: liberals of our time, he had a hard time with violence, even in self
: defense.
Again, this seems unlikely. Ben Sirach praises Joshua and David
for their success in killing enemies of the Jews.
: Also, has an entire Hebrew version of Ecclesiasticus been
: found? Censorship could have occured in the translations.
Two thirds of Ben Sirach is available in Hebrew, including the
section on Jewish heroes (chapters 44-49, found in the Cairo Geniza).
Mordecai is not in the Hebrew version. Moreover, according to the
introduction to the Greek translation, it was made in Egypt under a
Ptolemy, before the Roman conquest.
In any case, Esther does not seem to me to be a major candidate
for censorship. After all, everything Esther and Mordecai did,
including the Jewish battles against their enemies, were authorized by
the legitimate royal government. Rome had no objection to Jews asking
government aid against their enemies. Philo of Alexandria, in the
first century C.E., reports of a trip he made to Rome for that
purpose.
Compare Esther to Maccabees. Maccabees tells of a revolt against
the established government, something which one would think would be
much more likely to provoke censorship than anything in Esther. Yet the
preface to Second Maccabees indicates that it was written within a few
years of the Greek version of Ben Sirach.
: I know that I haven't given any hard proof that Ben Sirach knew about
: Purim. I'm only trying to show how it is plausible that Mordechai and
: Esther could have been left out of his work.
My original point was that we do not know when Esther was
written, and hence the argument that people with firsthand knowledge
of what happened in Persia under Ahasuerus would have objected to any
inaccuracies in Esther is not necessarily persuasive. IMO the
argument that even if Esther was written centuries after the period it
purports to describe, Rabbis or their equivalents would have been
aware of its historical accuracy, is unpersuasive. Scholars of
Jewish law have not generally been or claimed to be historians.
David Levene's Roman examples still seem powerful to me.
This is not to say there is no support for the claim that Esther
relates genuine events. Some of the descriptions of Persian court
life are apparently quite accurate, and there is a record of a court
official named Marduka in the reign of Xerxes I.
My point is simply that the argument that Esther must be true
because it could not plausibly have been invented (aform of argument
to which I am sympathetic in dealing with whether the Jews were ever
slaves in Egypt) seems to me open to serious objection.