A More Religious Megillah: The Jewish-Greek Version of Esther

The Jewish-Greek version of Esther adds several elements into the story, including prayers to God, prophetic dreams, and recognition of God's intervention.  These passages were added in Hasmonean Jerusalem, and highlights the conflict between the original diaspora book and how it was received in Hasmonean Judea.

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"A More Religious Megillah: The Jewish-Greek Version of Esther." TheTorah.com, March 9, 2014. https://www.thetorah.com/article/a-more-religious-megillah-the-jewish-greek-version-of-esther.

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"A More Religious Megillah: The Jewish-Greek Version of Esther" (2014, March 9). TheTorah.com. https://www.thetorah.com/article/a-more-religious-megillah-the-jewish-greek-version-of-esther

Prof. Aaron Koller
A More Religious Megillah: The Jewish-Greek Version of Esther

First chapter of a hand-written scroll of the Book of Esther, with reader’s pointer Wikimedia cc 3.0

Published: March 9, 2014

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Last Updated: September 7, 2026

  1.  See for instance http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/nets/edition/17-esther-nets.pdf or http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Greek+Esther+1&version=CEB, for example.

  2. For a brief insightful summary, see Sidnie White Crawford, “Additions to Esther,” in Eerdman’s Dictionary of the Bible (ed. David Noel Freedman, Allen C. Myers, and Astrid B. Beck; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000), 426-427.

  3.  Torrey, “The Older Book of Esther,” 1-2.

  4.  It is widely believed that Additions A, C, D, and F were originally written, in Hebrew, in Hasmonean-era Judea, while B and E may have been added, in Greek, in Alexandria.

  5.  See also D. J. A. Clines, The Esther Scroll: The Story of the Story (JSOT Sup 30; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1984), 174.

  6.  George W. E. Nickelsburg, Jewish Literature Between the Bible and the Mishnah: A Historical and Literary Introduction (2nd ed.; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005), 203.

  7.  By “biblical” here I mean the books in the Bible known to us which already in the author’s day seem to have been traditional and in some cases even authoritative.

  8.  Karen H. Jobes, The Alpha-Text of Esther: Its Character and Relationship to the Masoretic Text (SBL Dissertation Series 153; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996), 188-193.

  9.  Joseph Tabory, “השפעת תרגום השבעים למגילת אסתר על הספרות הרבנית,” Sidra24-25 (2010), 489.

  10.  The translation here and below is from the New English Translation of the Septuagint (see n. 1, above).

  11.  See also Nickelsburg, Jewish Literature Between the Bible and the Mishnah, 204.  I do not know what the significance of “Haman’s table” is precisely.  Is his table worse than the king’s table?  Why?

  12.  Michael V. Fox, “Three Esthers,” in The Book of Esther in Modern Research (ed. Sidnie White Crawford and Leonard J. Greenspoon; JSOT Sup 380; London: T & T Clark, 2003), 59.

  13.  See also the Greek version of 2:20 and 6:13.

  14.  For rabbinic comments that also read divine intervention in the narrative at this point, see Koller, Esther in Ancient Jewish Thought, 195 and 209 with n. 16.

  15.  E. J. Bickerman, “The Colophon of the Greek Book of Esther,” Journal of Biblical Literature 63 (1944), 231; Bezalel Bar-Kokhba, “על חג הפורים ועל מקצת ממנהגי הסוכות בימי הבית השני ולאחריו,” Zion 62 (1997), 389-390 n. 13.

  16.  See Third Maccabees 5-6.

Prof. Aaron Koller is Regius Professor of Hebrew at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Gonville & Caius College. Previously, he was professor of Near Eastern studies at Yeshiva University, where he chaired the Beren Department of… Read More
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