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The Book of Esther and the Jewish Festival Purim
- empath75 10y ago>references to Purim do not feature in the Jewish literature before the 1st century CE. > the festival had long been established by the 2nd century CE as evidenced in the tractate Megilah of the Mishnah (corpus of the oral tradition of Jewish law). I'm confused by this.
- dragonwriter 10y agoIt's perfectly consistent with it being established in, say, the early 1st century CE and spreading rapidly; a century is plenty long enough for a festival to be "long established", which it was (per the quote) by the second century CE, despite being absent from the literature before the 1st century CE.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- relics443 10y agoIt wouldn't feature in the "literature" before then because the oral Torah was not allowed to be written down. The compilation and writing of the Mishnah was in response to the inevitable upcoming exile.
- btilly 10y agoFor a contemporary example, Christmas trees do not feature in English or American Christmas traditions before the 19th century, but were long established by the 20th century. Ditto white wedding dresses. (The rise of of both traditions dates back to Queen Victoria.)
- acqq 10y ago> As God’s name is not explicitly mentioned in the Book of Esther, it was considered permissible to illustrate it. Wow. Does anybody have some good info abut this aspect of Judaism, wikipedia doesn't have much. Specifically I'd like to know the historical reliable sources about it, not the qoutes from the Bible, that is, I'm interested in the evidence for and against the use of illustrations among the Jews.
- js2 10y agoIn Judaism, G-d has no physical form nor image, so there would be no way to illustrate G-d: http://www.jewfaq.org/human.htm#Image http://www.jewfaq.org/human.htm#Image and http://www.jewfaq.org/g-d.htm http://www.jewfaq.org/g-d.htm This may be the wikipedia page you're looking for: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aniconism_in_Judaism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aniconism_in_Judaism
- akoster 10y agoI heard a similar explanation from a rabbi just a few days ago. Quite interesting and thanks for sharing.
- cobookman 10y agoDue to this belief you get some interesting Jewish thoughts. Such as Atheist Jews who do not believe a supernatural being exists. But that G-d is the spirit / will / empathy of the people in aggregate. For example a Jewish Atheist would say it was not some super natural being's doing that saved the Jews from the holocaust, but the good nature of people in aggregate. And it was that good nature that represents G-d. Finally as the joke goes in Judaism. You've got 2 Jews in a room and 5 conflicting opinions.
- relics443 10y agoIt's related to the 3rd commandment to not make an image of G-d. I don't believe the permission to illustrate the megillah has anything to do with G-d's name not being mentioned, as there are accepted illustrations of Tanach (where G-d's name is mentioned) across the spectrum. As long as there is no depiction of G-d it is fine. As an orthodox Jew, I have no reason to believe that any other orthodox Jew would be OK with making a depiction of G-d. If someone else did, it would just be avoided. I can't speak for any other denominations. Another thing an orthodox Jew might do is preface any anthropomorphic mention of G-d with "kavayachol" meaning "as if it were possible" (loosely translated as "so to speak"), in recognition of the fact that G-d cannot be prescribed physical qualities. Edit: just saw your note about historical precedence. For an orthodox Jew there is no separation of what it says in the Torah and what has happened historically. We follow a masoretic tradition as to the interpretation of the Torah. So as I said above, I can't imagine an orthodox Jew being OK with a depiction of G-d from a Torah standpoint.
- weeblywoo 10y agoWhat does this have to do with tech/typical HN topics? Seems fishy...
- pmarreck 10y ago> For an orthodox Jew there is no separation of what it says in the Torah and what has happened historically Not to sidetrack the discussion, but... So the earth is just 6000 years old, and dinosaur bones were... implanted by God to waylay followers without enough faith and basically confuse us?
- compsciphd 10y ago1) more complicated discussion that what can be done here Not necessarily - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_principles_of_faith https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_principles_of_faith 2) do some believe that? sure. I tend to argue that while we say one can't define god, one of the attributes attributed to god is "truth" (last word of Exodus 34:6). Many have a hard time associating God who is defined by as truth with a god who is like Loki who is just here to trick us by putting our senses against us (i.e. what we can observe).
- wycats 10y agoFurther, Maimonides, who enumerated the principles of faith accepted by Orthodox Jews, also held that Genesis could/should be interpreted allegorically[1]. > Some medieval philosophical rationalists, such as Maimonides (Mosheh ben Maimon, the "Rambam") held that it was not required to read Genesis literally. In this view, one was obligated to understand Torah in a way that was compatible with the findings of science. Indeed, Maimonides, one of the great rabbis of the Middle Ages, wrote that if science and Torah were misaligned, it was either because science was not understood or the Torah was misinterpreted. Maimonides argued that if science proved a point, then the finding should be accepted and scripture should be interpreted accordingly. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegorical_interpretations_of_Genesis#Rabbinic_teachings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegorical_interpretations_of...
- js2 10y agoMaimonides always amazes me. What an incredible position to advocate for in the middle ages.
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- andrewflnr 10y agoSome scholars have contended that given the striking resemblance between the names Esther and Mordecai to the Babylonian deities Marduk and Ishtar, the story was rooted in Babylonian worship practices... They really just left that there, without any hint as to whether there's anything in common besides the names? The Wikipedia pages for Marduk and Ishtar don't give any hints AFAICT.
- josh_fyi 10y agoIt's normal to have names based on divinities. E.g., Venus Williams. Or Jesus in Spanish names. It does not mean that the person is the god.
- andrewflnr 10y agoSure, but that's sort of why it's odd that TFA seemed to be suggesting that the story was based on Babylonian religious practice, citing no evidence other than the similar names.