Josephus's Version of Esther

A public relations piece for Jews?

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Flavius Josephus was a Jewish historian who lived during the first century of the Common Era. He is a somewhat controversial figure because he advocated surrender to the Romans during the siege of Jerusalem, and did this from the Roman side of the battlefield. Josephus's account of the revolt against Rome, The Jewish Wars, is considered the primary historical source about this event. His other great work, The Antiquities, is a comprehensive account of Jewish history. Because he wrote in Greek, Josephus's works were inaccessible to most Jews in early medieval times. This changed in the ninth century with the publication of Yossipon, a Hebrew digest of a number of books by Josephus. Excerpted with permission from The JPS Bible Commentary: Esther published by the Jewish Publication Society.

Josephus's paraphrase of the Esther story in The Antiquities of the Jews, Book II Chapter 6, also in Greek, may be considered a third Greek account, or interpretation, written somewhat later (in the first century CE, about a century after the Septuagint--a Greek translation of the Bible--and the third version, a shorter narrative known as the Alpha- text).

Drawing on the Septuagint and on the Jewish exegetical works of his time (probably the Targum), Josephus retells the story in a way that served his own agenda. As L. Feldman points out, in The Antiquities Josephus tries to show the biblical precursors of the themes and personalities that he discussed in his Jewish War.

Asa Jewish apologist, he sought to make Jewish values appear congruous with Greco-Roman values. He was especially concerned with combating the anti-Jewish stereotypes of his time and showing the Jews as tolerant of other religions. He therefore omits or minimizes details in the story that might make the Jews seem misanthropic or intolerant. For instance, he makes a strong point of identifying Haman as an Amalekite (the term is not used in the Masoretic Text or in the Septuagint) so that he can attribute Haman's hatred of the Jews to a family feud or personal grudge, rather than to the Jews' distinctiveness or misanthropy or to an eternal Jewish-gentile conflict.

Josephus's concern for law and order is manifest in his portrayal of Ahasuerus (who is in general more positive than in the Masoretic Text) as extremely law-abiding. Ahasuerus could not take Vashti back because the law forbade it. Vashti's refusal to appear before the king is attributed to a law that forbade women to be seen by strangers. Mordecai refused to bow to Haman because the laws of his own people forbade it.

In other words, the motif of the Persian legal system, which in the Masoretic Text takes on elements of parody, is used and amplified by Josephus in a more serious and positive manner so as to conform with the Greco-Roman esteem for law and legal systems.

Adele Berlin is Professor of Hebrew Bible at the University of Maryland.