Below you find a slightly adjusted version of section in the long Postface of the book 49:49. While polishing it before publishing it here, I realised that it could be interpreted as supportive to enemies of Israel in the Middle East and in the RudiDutschkified West.
But can we ever have hope for a better world without acknowledging that the sources of all three Abrahamic religions are drenched in tribalist hatred and misogyny?
According to my previous, more superficial impression, the abundance of violence and oppression was mainly linked to the first books of that Old Testament. Now I also recognized it in the book of Esther.
Not to the extent of ‘Numbers‘ or ‘Revelation‘, but the horror of the book of Esther is in great contrast to the image of that book.
At the same time it is classified by some among the so-called ‘festive roles‘ (Megilot).
There is a relatively large difference between the Protestant, Catholic and Jewish versions of Esther.
If you read popularized versions of it, this becomes even more noticeable.
Perhaps part of it has to do with the fact that this book of the Bible, one of very few, has no reference to any god, goddess or devil whatsoever?
A king does play an important role in this book.
That king has boundless contempt for women, but is nevertheless not really described in a negative way!
When one day he summons his wife to come to him, and she does not immediately obey, he repudiates her on the advice of his valets (or his counselors, or footmen: it depends on which version one reads).
These loyal men also come up with a plan to help him find a new queen: young women are herded from all over the country to his palace and then he tries one out every night.
Esther is also taken along. She does not tell the king stories, like the young woman in the fairy tale of 1001 nights, but ‘seduces’ him with resounding success.
And the Bible reports in verse 2.17 of this book with excitement:
And the king loved Esther more than all other women, and she had more love than all other girls (…).
Love and lust as identical … And as if this aspect needed some extra emphasis, there is also verse 2.19:
Once, when again –mind you: when Esther had already become the new queen– young girls were brought”, Mordecai (the male hero in this story) was on duty in the King’s Gate.
I came across several popularized versions of the book in which the entire book is described as a variation on Cinderella: there is no rape or prostitution involved, but a kind of beauty pageant…
This Mordecai was cousin and foster father of the orphan Esther.
At that gate he overheard a conversation between two men whose testicles and penis had been cut off.
They were angry with that king…
Perhaps that anger had to do with those mutilations?
In terms of filthiness making a eunuch of a man is comparable to pharaonic ‘circumcisions’ and acid attacks on the faces of women.
Perhaps the emasculated men also had a niece or a younger sister who was herded like cattle to the king’s harem but did not become queen: the story does not tell us.
Mordecai hears that they want to kill the king and he doesn’t hesitate for a moment: he is going to betray those men.
He does this through Esther.
And the eunuchs are hanged.
Some time later, the king appoints a kind of viceroy, one Haman.
The king decrees that everyone must kneel before this viceroy when he passes by, but Mordecai never does.
Haman is so angry about this that he decides that Mordecai must die. And not just Mordechai: all the Jews. He makes detailed plans to one day exterminate them throughout the empire: men, women and children.
For that genocide he and the king pinpoint an arbitrary date, but Mordechai finds out about the plan and that date.
That Esther is a Jewess, the king does not know by then.
Mordecai now lets Esther know that she really can and should do something for her people now, but he is captured and humiliated by that same genocide planner.
Meanwhile, while Esther procrastinates, the king finds out on his own that Mordecai was the heroic snitch who had given that golden tip about those ungrateful eunuchs.
Eventually Esther does inform the king both of her Jewish background and of the planned genocide.
And Mordecai, because of that accidental discovery by the king, is allowed to become the new viceroy!
Not only the evil Haman himself, but also his ten sons are hanged on the pole that had already been erected to hang Mordechai.
But it does not stop there!
Definitely not. The Jews go wild everywhere against the not exactly defined enemies.
More than 75,000 are killed in the process. Aside from the vagueness about who will be massacred, the most remarkable thing about the massacre is that the Jews are supported in their pre-emptive attack by all the king’s underlings because they all fear the -now suddenly very powerful- Mordechai.
This large-scale reversal from being slaughtered to slaughtering, is still celebrated annually as the Feast of Purim…
Note, by the way, that the genocidal plan in this story, like the Shoah that was actually implemented in the 20th century (and like much other large-scale violence against Jews in earlier centuries) was not based on hatred of aspects of the Jewish religion, but of the behavior of some Jewish people. [See again note 139].
The celebration of that reversal is sometimes referred to today as “Jewish Carnival“.
Indeed, the celebration has such curious phenomena as cross-dressing by children and a tradition of getting drunk!
Certainly piquant is a peculiarity about the exact day on which it is celebrated. According to numerous “stories for children and non-Jews,” that great reversal consisted only in the fact that the Jews received last-minute permission from the king to defend themselves against the genocidal attack planned on one specific day.
The ambiguity consists in the fact that the slaughter of the enemies was continued the next day by Jews in certain areas.
Is it strange that even non-fundamentalist Jews celebrate this reversal today? Only slightly, in my opinion. After all, the Jewish people would have escaped complete extermination. And I have no doubt that many also pretend that the children’s version is the “actual” one; perhaps have come to believe it themselves.
Of course, this “fairy tale with happy ending” at most partially rests on historical events.
However, the first (Dutch-language) Jewish-fundamentalist website I consult about it writes about it as if it were accurate historiography…
That text was drenched in a chilling devotion to those origins of the feast including that second day of ‘defense’: in detail it explains how the precise residence of Jews in contemporary Israel dictates on which day they should celebrate the feast…
This Feast of Purim is preceded by a day of fasting.
How on the aforementioned fundamentalist site the duties surrounding it are described -up to and including limited exceptions for women who are pregnant or breastfeeding- is painfully reminiscent of woes surrounding Muslim Ramadan that includes competitions in harassing others with, for example, a ban on brushing teeth or using eye drops by people with contact lenses.
So the “faith” as a license to harass others.
No, my introduction to the Jewish faith has not made me more positive about that religion and its associated god.
However, questions that nowadays concern me more as an ex-Catholic are: why is (for example) this book Esther also -still- in the Christian Bible?
And -even a fraction more painful- why did the book of Apocalypse end up in the New Testament and is it still there in that part of the Bible which is said to be significantly milder and of much greater importance than the Old?
Or -an entirely different, but equally difficult question- why is that distinctly tribal character of the Jewish religion almost never touched upon by Christians?