This is the first installment of a three-part post. For parts 2 and 3, and a postscript to the series, click here, here, and here.
The weekend after next is the Jewish festival of Purim. I don’t plan to celebrate. Purim is not one of my favorite holidays. The text on which it’s founded, the Book of Esther, is not my favorite book of the Bible.
At the heart of the Purim story is a quarrel over prestige that turns into massacre. A Jewish courtier in the palace of the Persian king Ahasuerus (known to the Greeks as Xerxes) refuses to show the powerful Haman the deference that Haman thinks is his due. Haman turns his wounded narcissism into a vendetta, directed not just at Mordecai the Jew but at all Mordecai’s people. He works on his amiable, pliable, rather dumb monarch–not the way history remembers Xerxes; the king’s name is practically the only historical datum in this work of fiction–and manages to obtain a royal decree, “to destroy, to slay, and to cause to perish, all Jews, both young and old, little children and women, in one day … and to take the spoil of them for a prey.” In other words–Holocaust.
This accomplished, “the king and Haman sat down to drink” (Esther 3:15).
So far, so bad. But Mordecai has an advantage Haman hasn’t dreamt of, which is that Ahasuerus’s queen Esther is not only Jewish–unbeknownst to everyone in the palace–but also Mordecai’s cousin. She has her own way of working on the king, with the result that the royal favor switches and Mordecai is exalted, Haman and his sons done to death. There’s a indeed a pogrom on the day appointed. Only, the Jews are the ones wielding the knives.
A happy ending, I guess. But one that leaves a bad taste in the mouth.
Christian theologians and Bible scholars, from Martin Luther onward, have fallen over themselves to denounce the “spirit of hatred and revenge” pervading the Book of Esther–sometimes suggesting it’s pretty creepy of the Jews to like this book so much. Naturally. It’s a lot easier to tut-tut over Esther’s “vindictiveness” when you don’t come from a history littered with Hamans and Haman wannabes, some of them extremely successful. (Consult the years 1933-45 for an example.) And yet the criticism is legitimate. The story behind the Purim festival is mean and squalid, a tale of manipulation and murder, redeemed here and there by a few humane spots. (Like the suggestions in 3:15 and 8:15 that all the people of Persia’s capital city are dismayed by Haman’s anti-Semitic decree, relieved at its reversal.)
The squalor isn’t exactly relieved by the manner through which Esther obtained her influential position. She becomes queen of Persia by joining, with Mordecai’s approval and support, in an erotic circus involving Ahasuerus and a multitude of good-looking young women, each of whom spends a trial night with the king. (This is turned into a “beauty contest” in children’s versions of the story.) Esther is the one invited back for more.
Nowhere is the question raised whether a Jewish girl ought to do this sort of thing. Esther indeed, at Mordecai’s suggestion, doesn’t let on she’s Jewish (2:10). Not for her to make a fuss over kosher food, like the Judean exiles in Nebuchadnezzar’s court (Daniel 1:8-16); Esther doesn’t seem to care what she eats, who she sleeps with. The Jewish God appears nowhere in her book, at least by name. As if He’d whispered into the author’s ear: you can write whatever you want; it’s a free country. But leave Me out of it.
Yet there are gods in the Book of Esther–just not Jewish ones. Both its heroes seem to have the names of Babylonian deities. Esther is Ishtar. Mordecai is Marduk.
How odd. And it’s surely significant–no one else in the book has names like these. It points toward some mythological subtext of the story, the shape of which we can only guess.
Who were Ishtar and Marduk? Marduk was a Johnny-come-lately sort of god, originally the celestial protector of the city of Babylon. As Babylon rose in importance so did Marduk, until he’d become head of the pantheon. (The Babylonian creation epic, Enuma elish, explains how and why the gods submitted themselves to Marduk’s authority.) Ishtar, by contrast, was a goddess of venerable antiquity, from the remote past of the Sumerian civilization. Ancient yet perpetually young, almost but not quite irresistable to males, she was goddess of love and sex. War also. (Think of the violence into which the Book of Esther explodes.) Originally named Inanna, she was forerunner to the Greek Aphrodite and the Roman Venus. The raunchiest divinity of the ancient Near East.
“Plow my vulva, man of my heart! Plow my vulva!” she cries out to her lover Dumuzi (later called Tammuz), to whom she was to turn monumentally nasty once the romance had soured. Dumuzi may have been her first. He was far from her last. In this respect she’s an inversion of Esther–or, it’s probably more accurate to say, Esther is an inversion of her. Both are notable for sex appeal. But Esther’s only the most successful of Ahasuerus’s long string of bed partners. Ishtar has her own extended chain of fools, who’ve loved her and whom she’s loved–for the time being. When she’s through with them, she does things like turn them into animals.
The hero Gilgamesh, upon whom Ishtar’s wandering eye has alighted, knows better than to get tangled up with her.
“Your lovers have found you like a brazier which smoulders in the cold, a backdoor which keeps out neither squall of wind nor storm … a water-skin that chafes the carrier … a sandal that trips the wearer. Which of your lovers did you ever love for ever? What shepherd of yours has pleased you for all time?” (From N.K. Sandars’ translation of The Epic of Gilgamesh.)
Not that his prudence keeps Gilgamesh from getting burned. Ishtar, who could have taught her Jewish namesake a thing or two about vindictiveness, knows how to hit back where it hurts. At Gilgamesh–and hundreds of innocent people along with him.
One more thing about Ishtar. Like her Roman successor Venus, she was associated with the second planet of the solar system, which the ancients knew as Morning and Evening Star. The brilliant pearly light that sometimes precedes the sunrise, at other times appears in the west after the sun has set.
In this guise, perhaps, Ishtar penetrates the Bible once more–under the lovely, evocative title of “Doe of the Dawn.”
I’ll talk about this “Doe of the Dawn” in my next post.
by David Halperin
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This was a great post. I especially enjoyed seeing the similarities to Ishtar and Esther and, not coincidentally, those Names are similar to Astarte, Isis, Eostre, Ostara, etc.
Also, from what little I have read, Gilgamesh was romantically involved with Enkidu. Alas, not my Primary Pantheon, which is why I have spent so little time reading about it.
Nonetheless, I have always had an affinity with Ishtar, and now I have a better understanding of Her.
I look forward to the second and third parts of your post. Thanks, again.
Thanks so much for your comment, Robert!
I have noticed a lot of things about European and Middle-Eastern pre-Judaic faiths. They all share stories between them and the book of the Judaic faiths. This can be accounted for by the assimilation of the Jews into the cultures that they were subjugated to. I find myself looking back into the stories of all the cultures back then and see a lot of different things coming out of the area.
I look at it in this light. When the Roman Catholic Church would send in priests and troops into a new area they would tear down the temples or places of worship. Then they would build new churches on the same ground. This would force the people of the area to come to the church to visit the sacred grounds.
You also see that a lot of stories from other cultures making their way into the Christian mindset. The one that stands out most in my mind is the stories of Saint Brighid. Brighid the Goddess is probably the most important figure out of the British isles. She was the Goddess of healing, smithcraft, poetry and wisdom. She was also the Goddess of fertility and was said to protect children in their cradles.
I will leave this up to you as to make the determination of your mindset but I think that there is no one culture that has not gone through some kind of transformation upon mixing with local cultures.
As always, thank you for speaking your mind.
And thank you for your comment! I hadn’t known about Saint Brighid, and am glad to have this information.
Many cultures have legends about witches who attack children in their cradles. I wonder if these legends, and those about Brighid, are at bottom the same? What do you think?
May stories can be a little crazy. During the Black Death Plague in central Europe, cats were considered to be the ones that caused it. So many people would kill the cats they found. This in turn caused the spread of the plague. The carrier of the black death was rats and their fleas. So instead of helping themselves by keeping the cats close, they destroyed the one thing that could have mad a difference. On a side note the childrens rhyme Ring around the Rosy is a direct correlation of the problems. The symptoms of the plague included a rosy red rash in the shape of a ring on the skin (Ring around the rosy). Pockets and pouches were filled with sweet smelling herbs ( or posies) which were carried due to the belief that the disease was transmitted by bad smells. The term “Ashes Ashes” refers to the cremation of the dead bodies! The death rate was over 60% and the plague was only halted by the Great Fire of London in 1666 which killed the rats which carried the disease which was transmitting via water sources.
The stories of witches attacking children was start with the Great Inquisition. It was to create a fear of something that did not exist. The Malleus Maleficarum (Witches Hammer) asserts that three elements are necessary for witchcraft: the evil-intentioned witch, the help of the Devil, and the Permission of God. The book goes on to explain that the witches will take many forms and roles. In the end the book started the greatest form of genocide known to have ever happened. Some references state approx 20 million people. Though the numbers could be much less.
Good talking to you and feel free to do your own research. I can only tell what I have read and learned.
Again, thanks for your comment! Two notes: first, you might want to check snopes.com on “Ring Around the Rosy”; I also believed the explanation you quote until I read what they have to say. Second, Brian P. Levack’s “The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe” argues for a much lower number of victims. (Although any is too many.)
Another very interesting blog David! It seems to me that Luther et all protest too much: “Torah teaches: If someone is coming to kill you, get up early and kill him” (BT Sanhedrin 72a).
If I may, the author of the Ra’aya Meheimna was bothered by Esther’s conduct as well:
“You may say that Esther has a bad reputation, that she was defiled with Ahasuerus, [yet] she was worthy that the Holy Spirit be clothed in her as written, Esther donned מַלְכוּת (Malkhut), royal garb (Esther 5:1). Yet the blessed Holy One said, I am YHWH: that is My Name: and My glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to פְּסִילִים (pesilim), graven images (Isaiah 42:8). [However] the Holy Spirit is the Shekhinah [who is פָּסוּל (pasul), rejected, cf. Isaiah 50:1] a name that was clothed with Esther.
The Masters of Mishnah say: It is said of the Matronita: and His kingdom rules over all (Psalms 103:19). After Esther put on [royal garb/Malkhut] she ruled over Ahasuerus and his people, and it is said of them, [And the rest of the Jews who were in the king’s provinces assembled and defended their lives and had respite from their enemies] and killed of foes, [seventy-five thousand, but they did not lay hands on the spoils] (Esther 9:16). If you say that [Ahasuerus] mated with her, perish the thought, though they were in the same house. Rather it was like Joseph of whom it says, and she [the wife of potiphar] laid out בִּגְדוֹ (bigdo), his garment, by her (Genesis 39:16). בִּגְדוֹ (Bigdo), his garment—similarly treacherous dealers have dealt very בָּגָדוּ (bagadu), treacherously (Isaiah 24:16).
There is a great mystery here, which is why אֶסְתֵּר (Ester), Esther, is derived from סֵתֶר (seter), secret, as written, You are סֵתֶר (seter), a hiding place, for me (Psalms 32:7), since the Shekhinah hid her from Ahasuerus and gave him a female demon instead while she returned to Mordecai’s arm. And Mordecai, who knew the explicit Name and the seventy tongues, did all this with wisdom [see BT Sanhedrin 17a]” (Zohar 3:276a-b, Ra’aya Meheimna Ki Tetze, cf. Zohar 2:277a).
Indeed an interesting “read” of the Esther story! Thank you for posting it.
For those who aren’t familiar with the Ra’aya Meheimna (“Faithful Shepherd”), it’s a Kabbalistic work, author unknown, written about 1300 and printed in standard editions of the Zohar.