Apocryphal Megillah? Yes!
As I was writing a post yesterday, I did a google search to find Hebrew text of Megillas Esther in order to provide the original in that post. Imagine my complete and utter surprise when, quite by accident, I came across the little known Apocryphal latter part of the tenth chapter (beyond the first three verses) plus another SIX chapters of the Megillah! Yes! The original Megillas Esther actually consisted of SIXTEEN chapters, not ten (or nine plus three verses).
Interestingly, the very first verse of these Apocryphal chapter is "Then Mordechai said, 'God hath done these things.'" Which explains quite nicely why this was cut out of the Megiallah as we know it. After all, the whole point of Esther is "Hester Panim" - God hiding his face, and the Megillah is supposed to be an exercise in Emunah, faith. Do we believe everything that happens in the Book of Esther is a coincidence of fortuitous events that led to the salvation of the Jews? Or do we believe God had his hand in all this, but orchestrated these events behind the scenes, intentionally leaving it ambiguous whether He had anything to with anything at all. Here is the end of the tenth chapter of Megillas Esther:
4 Then Mordechai said, God hath done these things.Chapter eleven goes on to tell of the dream Mordechai mentions in verses 5-8. The final chapters recount, more briefly, the story of the Megillah, with much focus on the prayers of Mordechai and Esther to God, very explicitly mentioning God's name several times, something that does not happen in the first nine chapters and in the first three verses of chapter ten.
5 For I remember a dream which I saw concerning these matters, and nothing thereof hath failed.
6 A little fountain became a river, and there was light, and the sun, and much water: this river is Esther, whom the king married, and made queen:
7 And the two dragons are I and Aman.
8 And the nations were those that were assembled to destroy the name of the Jews:
9 And my nation is this Israel, which cried to God, and were saved: for the Lord hath saved his people, and the Lord hath delivered us from all those evils, and God hath wrought signs and great wonders, which have not been done among the Gentiles.
10 Therefore hath he made two lots, one for the people of God, and another for all the Gentiles.
11 And these two lots came at the hour, and time, and day of judgment, before God among all nations.
12 So God remembered his people, and justified his inheritance.
13 Therefore those days shall be unto them in the month Adar, the fourteenth and fifteenth day of the same month, with an assembly, and joy, and with gladness before God, according to the generations for ever among his people.
Now, I can understand why chapter twelve through sixteen were edited out of the Canonical works of Tanach by Anshei Knesses Ha'Gedolah, the Great Rabbinic Assembly of the late Babylonian Exile and early Second Temple era. Frankly, it's just a repeat of the story (and who wants to stand in shul for another six chapters while still fasting...), though the tefillos, prayers, of Mordechai and Esther are quite inspirational and beautiful. But why delete the latter part, or rather, most of, chapter ten? It's relevant, and gives God credit for the miracle? Did the members of Anshei Knesses Ha'Gedolah do so with the purpose of allowing the reader to decide for himself, as mentioned above, how to accept the events chronicled in the Megillah? I don't know. I have a feeling they did, even though the Midrash about this (coincidence or God's handiwork) was written MUCH later, perhaps even late enough that they weren't even very aware of Apocryphal part of the Megillah. But it does make me wonder what the motivation here was in cutting away the latter part of chapter ten.
However, if the motivation was to allow the reader to decide whether the events depicted in the Megillah were coincidence or Divine Providence, I propose they did a very poor job of allowing that choice. Just by being taught that we have that choice takes away that choice. We are all taught, when learning Megillas Esther, there was Hester Panim, that God "hid" Himself, yet performed the miracle of Purim nevertheless. If one celebrates Purim, obviously one believes it was God's hand in the events, not coincidence. So where's the challenge? After all, the essence of the Purim celebration (and I'm not talking about the costuming of children, which in itself is supposed to be a form of Hester Panim) is celebrating the miracle GOD performed in saving the Jewish people from the evil plans of Haman. Further, in davening and bentching, we recite "Al Hanissim... She'Asissa La'Avoseinu" - we praise God for the miracles He performed for our forefathers! So again, where's the challenge? Was it worth it to leave out the latter part of chapter ten of Megillas Esther just to pretend we have a choice to decide whether the events in Megillas Esther were coincidence or Yad Hashem?
To be honest, I find Mordechai telling of his dream after the Megillah tells the entire story may strengthen, not weaken the idea of Hester Panim in the story. It is only after we've had a chance to see the entire story and, at least in theory, decide for ourselves what to believe, that Mordechai tells us that EVEN THOUGH it looked like it was all a coincidence, it was, nevertheless, Yad Hashem all along, at which point the Megillah, at least the Apocryphal part of it, then segues into the dream and retells the story WITH God's presence. Perhaps the final chapters could have been read on Purim day as a contrast to the Purim night reading. As is the case with Apologetics, a subject I've visited several times in this blog, I think the editors of Tanach missed the boat in this case as well. In Tanach, when someone does something wrong, there's always some Meforshim or member of Chazal who like to sugar-coat the incident and "show" us that the person really didn't screw up. I find these commentaries offensive because I love seeing Tanach personalities being HUMAN, not God-like. I find, when great people such as Moshe Rabbeinu or Dovid Hamelech screw up a situation, these stories to be VERY meaningful because the results of those screw-ups is that the person making the mistake repents, realizes he was in the wrong, and becomes a greater person for it. By sugar-coating these stories with Apologetics, the story loses meaning and the commentaries and rabbis who are guilty of sugar-coating rob us of a great opportunity to learn how to be a good, and better, person.
The same applies to the Apocryphal chapters of the Megillah. Why leave them out? Why not read them on Purim Day and give us the chance to see the difference in the two ways of seeing events and allow us to appreciate even more the greatness of the miracles God performs for us every day and every moment of our lives? I find the contrast between the first nine chapters and the final seven chapters of the Megillah to be stunning. In the first nine chapters, the authors show us events through the eyes of "every person." We see a series of events that lead to salvation without seeing Yad Hashem in all of it.
But, in the latter chapters, the authors show us what really happened. They open our eyes to the miracle that is Purim, a miracle that could not, did not, happen without God's intervention. Now, isn't that a much more powerful lesson? I think it is.
9 comments:
I wonder if the first 3 verses of chapter 10 were left to hint at the remainning chapters which were not read.
I also wonder if the canon process came about from what was required reading. i.e. since the rest of hte megilah was never read, it just was never kept and re-written.
Please be careful. The existence of additional material does not necessarily mean that it was part of the original and then bowdlerized. It is very possible that it could have been written later as a tikkun for what its author saw as a defect in the existing text - namely the lack of any explicit reference to God.
Anonymous,
Probably did. I mean, the last chapter we read is a lot smaller than all the rest, which makes it kind of inconsistent with the length of the rest of the chapters.
Richard,
If the authors themselves added to the text as a tikkun to add God's name, it might have been included in the Megillah, unless it wasn't specifically for the reasons we all grew up learning... And, if the authors saw it as a defect, the reasoning we are all given about choosing whether the events were coincidence or God's handiwork would be voided by your reasoning.
Wikipedia on the Additions to Esther:
Esther is usually dated to the third or fourth century BCE. Jewish tradition regards it as a redaction by the Great Assembly of an original text written by Mordecai.
The Greek additions to Esther (which do not appear in the Jewish/Hebrew...) are dated to the 2nd century BCE...
An additional six chapters appear interspersed in Esther in the Septuagint, the Greek translation, which then was noted by Jerome in compiling the Latin Vulgate; additionally, the Greek text contains many small changes in the meaning of the main text. The extra chapters include several prayers to God, perhaps because it was felt that the above-mentioned lack of mention of God was inappropriate in a holy book. Jerome recognized them as additions not present in the Hebrew Text and placed them at the end of his Latin translation as chapters 10:4-16:24. However, some modern Catholic English Bibles restore the Septuagint order, such as Esther in the NAB.
By the time Esther was written, the foreign power visible on the horizon as a future threat to Judah was the Macedonians of Alexander the Great, who defeated the Persian empire about 150 years after the time of the story of Esther; the Septuagint version noticeably calls Haman a Macedonian where the Hebrew text describes him as an Agagite.
The canonicity of these Greek additions has been a subject of scholarly disagreement practically since their first appearance in the Septuagint...
Some scholars suggest that Additions to Esther is the work of an Egyptian Jew, writing around 170 BCE, who sought to give the book a more religious tone, and to suggest that the Jews were saved from destruction because of their piety.
Esther Rabbah includes all of Additions to Esther save the "letter texts". It is these "letter texts" that contain the ahistorical asertions that Haman was a Greek.
For more on the late origin of the Additions to Esther, see here.
Cool! Except one must remember that the Jews at some point translated Tanach into Greek. Were these chapters included then but later taken out, thus only leaving a Greek translation available? I don't know. I did notice Haman being called a Macedonian, but this could have been a mistranslation of him being from Madai, making him a Madainite, which isn't too dissimilar to Macedonian. Possibly.
Anyway, all this was just food for thought. And I did notice and discuss the contrast of the use of God's name in the latter, Apocryphal chapters.
AKO: I did notice Haman being called a Macedonian, but this could have been a mistranslation of him being from Madai, making him a Madainite, which isn't too dissimilar to Macedonian.
Except that the Hebrew text calls him an Agagite, not a Madainite.
That's his lineage, not his nationality...
Remember, by that point, the Assyrians, under Sancheriv, had mixed most peoples up, including the ten tribes. So, while many might have held on to their lineage, their nationalities might have changed.
the extra chapters were written after the megillah, they were not edited out, but edited in.
Yes, but by whom? And when? And why?
And your source? Other than Wikipedia...
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