Menachem Mendel

As Purim is almost over, a quick post on an interesting facet of Megillat Esther. Among all of the scrolls and fragments that make up the Dead Sea Scrolls there is at least a fragment of every single biblical book except for Esther and possibly Nehemiah. See here, here, and this article which I haven’t had a chance to look at. A number of reasons have been given for this absence.

First are the biblical texts, covering some part of every book except Esther, which is probably missing only by chance.

(Lawrence Schiffman, Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls, 33)
…

The table shows that every book except Esther is represented at Qumran in some form. While several explanations are possible for the absence of Esther, the most likely is simply chance. A finding of zero copies is neither surprising nor statistically meaningful, for several other books of the Writings are found in only one or two copies. Alternatively, it is possible that the members of the sect did not consider that book, or the holiday of Purim, as authoritative parts of their own Jewish life and observance. Yet despite the book’s absence, we have reason to believe that the sectarians knew and read the Book of Esther. Expressions from it show up here or there in compositions in the Qumran sectarian corpus. One apocryphal work in Aramaic, termed Proto-Esther, is clearly related to it.
(Ibid., 164)

and

In spite of our scepticism regarding some of these scholarly arguments, there are enough Esther-like phrases scattered among the Dead Sea scrolls to establish beyond reasonable doubt that the Essenes were familiar with its contents. If this is true, then it only serves to heighten the mystery of its absence from the Qumran library.

…

Upon reflection, however, we can appreciate that the austere Essenes would have looked askance at many aspects of the Megillah. Taken at face value, Esther appears to be a disturbingly secular–or even profane–story, in which God’s name is never invoked, and the salvation of the Jews is achieved through a combination of shrewd scheming, personal courage and coincidence. For the fatalistic folk at Qumran, who believed that human destiny is meticulously predetermined by the Almighty, this was not an acceptable message.

…

The folks at Qumran would also have been uneasy about the cosmopolitan ambience that pervades the Esther story. Not only do the Jews of Shushan mingle freely in the Persian court and partake in the (apparently non-kosher) feasting and drinking, but the heroine, with scarcely a thought about the halakhic implications, takes the unthinkable step of marrying the heathen monarch. This would have caused serious discomfort to the insular and xenophobic Essenes whose universe was neatly divided between the Children of Light (that is, themselves) and the Children of Darkness (everybody else).

(Eliezer Segal, here)

and lastly

It could be argued that the Qumran community did include Esther scrolls in its library and that the absence of these writings is simply due to chance and the relatively small size of the book (ten chapters). Research and evidence from certain nonbilical scrolls, however, show that Esther was rejected by the Qumran community for theological reasons. But what is the correct explanation for its decision not to include this books?

…

One possibility is the secular nature of the work, which makes no mention of God at all. Another is that the story concerns the marriage of Esther, who is a Jew, to a gentile Persian king, which would have been offensive to the conservative Jewish groups such as the Essenes. A third possibility is the emphasis on retaliation in the later chapters (7-9) of Esther, which conflicts with some of the Qumran community’s own writings…
…
Although there may be some truth in these explanations, the Qumran community’s decision to reject Esther almost certainly arose from a different, overriding concern. The book of Esther introduces a new festival named Purim (Esther 9:20-32), which is not mentioned in the books of Moses. This most likely caused the Qumranites to exclude this book from their library of sacred writings. The the community did reject this feast is confirmed by the Qumran calendrical texts, which chart festivals and holy days in their 364-day year. These documents do not include the festival of Purim, which has its beginnings in the story of Esther. We may conclude, then, that the Qumran community objected to this new festival and to the book that inaugurates it for the Jewish people.

(James C. VanderKam and Peter Flint, The Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Their Significance For Understanding the Bible, Judaism, Jesus, and Christianity
119-120 [here])

Posted on March 10th, 2009 under Ancient History, Bible Studies, archeology • RSS 2.0 feed • You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed