Esther in Midrash and Apocrypha

The book of Esther that is preserved in the Hebrew Bible (the Christian Old Testament) leaves many questions unanswered, including:

• whether Esther prayed and observed the Sabbath and other Jewish holy days

• whether Esther strictly kept traditional Jewish dietary practices, as Daniel and his companions did (as recorded in Dan 1)

• whether Esther maintained ritual purity in her marriage

• whether Esther liked being queen

These questions are addressed in the expansive Jewish interpretive tradition known as midrash and in the deuterocanonical version of the book of Esther, both of which are of Jewish origin and date prior to Christianity (Walfish, “Kosher Adultery?,” 111). The general direction of this exegesis was to show that Esther conformed in every way to Second Temple and rabbinic ideals of how a Jewish woman should conduct her life (Langston, “Reading a Text Backwards,” 211). In the process, all ambiguities in the traditional Hebrew text that might suggest otherwise were erased (Berlin, “Book of Esther,” 11).