This episode explores the story of Queen Esther of Persia - considered one of the bible's greatest heroines - who reveals her Jewish identity to prevent a massacre thereby saving the Jews from destruction. (Biblical Mysteries EP15) According to the Bible, she was a Jewish queen of the Persian king Ahasuerus. Ahasuerus is traditionally identified with Xerxes I during the time of the Achaemenid empire. Her story is the basis for the celebration of Purim in Jewish tradition. Origin and meaning According to Esther 2:7, Esther was originally named Hadassah. Hadassah means "myrtle" in Hebrew. It has been conjectured that the name Esther is derived from a reconstructed Median word astra meaning myrtle. An alternative view is that Esther is derived from the theonym Ishtar. The Book of Daniel provides accounts of Jews in exile being assigned names relating to Babylonian gods and "Mordecai" is understood to mean servant of Marduk, a Babylonian god. "Esther" may have been a different Hebrew interpretation from the Proto-Semitic root "*?aθtar- 'morning/evening star'", which descended with the /th/ into the Ugaritic Athtiratu and Arabian Athtar. The derivation must then have been secondary for the initial ayin to be confused with an aleph (both represented by vowels in Akkadian), and the second consonant descended as a /s/ (like in the Aramaic asthr "bright star"), rather than a /sh/ as in Hebrew and most commonly in Akkadian. Wilson, who identified Ahasuerus with Xerxes I and Vashti with Amestris, suggested that both "Amestris" and "Esther" derived from Akkadian Ammi-Ishtar or Ummi-Ishtar. Hoschander alternatively suggested Ishtar-udda-sha ("Ishtar is her light") as the origin with the possibility of -udda-sha being connected with the similarly sounding Hebrew name Hadassah. These names however remain unattested in sources, and come from the original Babylonian Empire from 2000 BCE,[citation needed] not the Chaldean Empire or Persian Empire of the Book of Esther.[citation needed] The Targum connects the name with the Persian word for "star", ستاره setareh, explaining that Esther was so named for being as beautiful as the Morning Star. In the Talmud (Tractate Yoma 29a), Esther is compared to the "morning star", and is considered the subject of Psalm 22, because its introduction is a "song for the morning star". Interpretations Esther is considered a prophet in Judaism. She is also commemorated as a matriarch in the Calendar of Saints of the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod on May 24. She is also recognized as a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church. Dianne Tidball argues that while Vashti is a "feminist icon", Esther is a post-feminist icon. Abraham Kuyper notes some "disagreeable aspects" to her character — that she should not have agreed to take Vashti's place, that she refrained from saving her nation until her own life was threatened, and that she carries out bloodthirsty vengeance. Persian culture Given the great historical link between Persian and Jewish history, modern day Persian Jews are called "Esther's Children". A building known as the Tomb of Esther and Mordechai is located in Hamadan, Iran, although the village of Kfar Bar'am in northern Israel also claims to be the burial place of Queen Esther

• published: 12 Dec 2013
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