The Bible contains a story of how a young Jewish woman named Esther became the Queen of Persia and saved the Jews from an intended massacre. This is the background to the Festival of Purim, which the Jews still observe today. However, are these events just fictitious, or did they really happen? Did Esther herself even really exist?
Reasons why some believe Esther did not exist
The story of Esther is set in the fifth century BCE in Persia. Scholars accept numerous Biblical accounts from at least the eighth century BCE onwards as historical. It is ironic, then, that the story of Queen Esther is one of the most recent stories in the Hebrew Scriptures, and yet is often viewed as fictional. What is the basis for this?
The reason is that there is good evidence that Esther’s husband, King Ahasuerus, was identical to Xerxes the Great. We have ancient Greek records about Xerxes’ queen, a certain Amestris.
The records present her as married to Xerxes throughout the period in which Esther was supposed to have been married to him. Yet, the Greek records do not mention Xerxes having more than one wife. Likewise, the Bible’s Book of Esther presents Esther as being the sole wife of Ahasuerus once they were married.
Based on this evidence, it does not appear that Esther really existed. Furthermore, these records about the reign of Xerxes allegedly provide no support to the narrative found in the Book of Esther.
The solution to the problem of Esther and Amestris
The obvious solution to this problem of Esther and Amestris is to conclude that they were actually the same person. Is this a reasonable conclusion? Furthermore, is there any evidence actively supporting it?
When we look closely, we can see that the two figures bear very similar names. The name ‘Amestris’ comes to us through Greek sources; there are no surviving Persian records mentioning her. Ancient Greek naming conventions required this ‘s’ termination to the name.
Therefore, a more authentic form would leave off the ‘s’ on the end. The similarity between ‘Amestri’ and ‘Esther’ is quite clear. The only major difference is the presence of the ‘Am’ at the beginning of the former.
This could easily be a suffix added to the name by the Persian sources from whom the Greeks learned about this woman. For example, they may have added the suffix ‘ama’, meaning ‘strong’, to her name.
Alternatively, it could be that the Bible writer recorded a slight abbreviation of her original Persian name, which would not be unusual. For instance, the Bible records the name ‘Ashurbanipal’ as ‘Asenappar’, removing the second syllable. The famous name ‘Jesus’ is a rendering of the Hebrew ‘Yeshua’, which is actually a shortening of ‘Yehoshua’.
Therefore, in terms of their names, there is no issue with Esther and Amestris being identical.
How Herodotus corroborates the story of Queen Esther
However, just because Esther might be identifiable as Amestris, that does not necessarily mean that the Bible’s account about her life is historical. Is there any evidence from the Greek records that actively supports the historicity of Esther and her actions?
The Bible claims that Esther arranged a banquet with her husband, Ahasuerus (Xerxes), and a powerful court official named Haman. During this banquet, she requested the king’s favor for her people, the Jews, and exposed Haman for his attempt to kill them.
This infuriated the king, and he had Haman executed. The Jews went on to kill the sons of Haman as well, in addition to Haman’s supporters across the empire who tried to kill the Jews.
A very similar story is found in the writings of the 5th-century BCE Greek historian Herodotus. Herodotus claims that Amestris waited for the day of a special banquet to make an unusual request of her husband, King Xerxes.
This request was profoundly unfavourable towards Masistes, one of Xerxes’ most prominent court officials. At Masistes’ reaction, Xerxes became incensed at him. Masistes fled, but the king’s men caught up with him and killed him, his sons, and his entire army of supporters.
How does this indicate that Esther existed?
The details of the story recounted by Herodotus differ significantly from those in the Book of Esther. Nevertheless, the basic structure of Herodotus’ account aligns well with the Book of Esther.
Both stories involve Xerxes’ queen waiting to speak with him at a banquet. In both narratives, the queen requests something of the king, which horrifies the high court official present, and then results in the king getting inflamed with anger at him.
In both cases, the high court official is killed, and so are his sons, along with all those who supported him. Herodotus refers to the ‘army’ of Masistes being killed, showing that this was not a minor case of a few executions. This was essentially a war, albeit a very brief one. This matches the Book of Esther’s account of Haman’s supporters being killed by the Jews across the provinces of the Persian Empire.
Furthermore, the name ‘Masistes’ may well have been a title. It comes from a Persian word meaning ‘greatest’. Scholars believe that this may have originally been a title referring to the most powerful ruler after the king. That fits Haman in the Book of Esther perfectly.
The two accounts differ considerably. Yet, at the same time, their similarities are very conspicuous. Can we really believe that the Jews and Herodotus independently invented such similar accounts involving Xerxes’ wife? This seems very unlikely.
Based on this evidence from Herodotus, many scholars believe that the Book of Esther records historical events. Queen Esther is believed to have existed and may be identified with Queen Amestris from Greek records.
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