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Open Theology 2021; 7: 35–59 Research Article Sorrel Wood* Writing Esther: How do Writing, Power and Gender Intersect in the Megillah and its Literary Afterlife? https://doi.org/10.1515/opth-2020-0146 received September 07, 2020; accepted January 12, 2021 Abstract: There are two instances in the entire Hebrew Bible in which women feature as the to write. “One is subject of the verb Jezebel (1 Kgs 21:8). This paper takes this fact כתב ”:Esther (Esther 9:29) and the other is as a starting point from which to illuminate the narrative and thematic junctures of writing, power and gender in Esther and its literary afterlife. It utilizes the hermeneutical framework of feminist literary theory, as well as drawing upon narratology and linguistic theory related to gender and power, and textual theory related to metatextuality and intertextuality, in order to explore the ways in which the narrator, the canonization process and the reception history of the text have functioned to constrain and restrain Esther’s authorial identity and status, and conversely the places and spaces where it has been developed and emphasised. Key areas of exploration include the writing culture of the Late Persian and Early Hellenistic periods, creative rewritings of Esther in the Targums and in Rabbinic Haggadah, and a con- sideration of the implications of the fact that Esther and Jezebel are the only explicitly identified female writers in the Hebrew Bible (Esther. (9:29, 1 Kings 21:8–9)). Keyword: Esther, writing, textuality, feminism, authorship, Hebrew Bible 1 Introduction to depict Esther as a writer.¹ In a pointedly metareferential תכתב Esther 9:29 uses the feminine singular verb text, which foregrounds and satirises writing as a futile attempt to codify power and to suppress and homogenise the heteroglossia of colonised peoples, this is indubitably significant. In a text which narrates the plucky survival of an oppressed “other,” who secures a total reversal of their circumstances through recourse to the unorthodox means of a female rising to power, in one of only two biblical books with a female eponymous protagonist, this should not be ignored. Indeed, throughout this thesis I shall argue that functions as a nexus for the intersecting themes of power, textuality and gender in a narrative which תכתב combines a dense matrix of intersectional themes in order to explore what necessitates survival and identity outside of the land. I shall also demonstrate the ways in which the lexeme can be situated, and should be interpreted, through recourse to textual theory, feminist literary criticism and ancient Near Eastern com- parative study. 1 This article will focus on MT Esther unless otherwise stated. * Corresponding author: Sorrel Wood, Independent Scholar, Oxford, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, e-mail: [email protected] Open Access. © 2021 Sorrel Wood, published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. 36 Sorrel Wood verb form is a dis legomenon with 1 Kgs 21:8, in which it is used with Jezebel as the feminine תכתב The singular subject. This means that, as Davidson states, “Queens Jezebel and Esther provide the only indica- tion of women writing in the Old Testament.”² The potential implications of this fact for feminist biblical hermeneutics are staggering. Why are Esther and Jezebel the only female writers in the Hebrew Bible? Is it a reasonable hypothesis that this is a deliberate intertextual allusion, and if so, how does that affect our reading of the text? In what sense can we say that Esther is a “writer”? How unusual would it be for a powerful, royal woman to write (or dictate) public documents in the ancient world? In what sense, if any, is her act subversive, in a highly subversive text which depicts a gentile marriage and presumably the breaking of food laws, and which only just made it into the canon?³ In its response to the above questions, this thesis will attempt to demonstrate the legitimacy and importance of reading Esther as a writer, and consider some possible interpretative frameworks for eval- uating her action. It will argue that the depiction of Esther as a writer can be seen as a proto-poststructur- alist comment on the perpetual deferral of meaning in a time and place where God is apparently absent, and also that there is persuasive evidence for interpreting it as an intertextual allusion to 1 Kgs 21:8. It will also argue that despite the scarcity of female writing figures in the Hebrew Bible, the trope is not as unusual as we might initially suppose. It is my intention that the weight of these considerations will have a cumulative makes a small but תכתב and heuristic force, ultimately demonstrating that recognising the importance of significant contribution to the construction of a feminist hermeneutical framework for reading the Megillah. 1.1 Writing Esther I shall briefly contextualise the reference before beginning analysis. Esther 9:29 states: ותכתב אסתר המלכה בת אביחיל ומרדכי היהודי את־כל תקף לקים את אגרת הפרים הזאת השנית And Esther – the Queen and daughter of Avihayil, with Mordecai the Jew – wrote with full authority⁴ to ratify this second Purim letter.⁵ This is a second letter which functions to confirm or ratify⁶ Mordecai’s edict in 8:9. The implication from Mordecai dictating to scribes or secretaries in 8:9 is that Esther is not physically writing the edict, and not even necessarily literate, but rather dictating her words to scribes, as a function of the authority delegated to her by the king.⁷ Thus, it is the ascription of authorial identity, not the physical act of writing, which .כתב designates someone as the subject of is a Qal waw consecutive imperfect third-person feminine singular: it indicates that a תכתב The verb single female subject is conducting the writing. The syntactical construction is not straightforward, though, since this singular, feminine verb is associated with a compound, masculine and feminine subject. In this instance, we should normally expect the masculine plural form of the verb. This lack of agreement between the singular verb and multiple subjects draws attention to itself. There are various possible reasons for this incongruity. One, as Bush and Moore conclude, is that “and Mordecai” belongs to a later redactional layer 2 O’Brien, The Oxford Encyclopaedia of the Bible and Gender Studies. 3 McDonald, (The Canon Debate,56) states that, from the second to the fifth centuries CE, there was “so much discussion […] about whether books like Ezekiel, Ruth, Esther, Ecclesiastes and Sirach ‘defile the hands’.” Esther has also not been found at Qumran. 4 BDB and HALOT state that the noun connotes power, strength, energy and authority; it appears here, 10:2 and Daniel 11:17. 5 Translations my own unless otherwise stated. Since “wrote” in English can be either a singular or a plural perfect past tense verb, any sense of Esther as the primary actor, or the possible redactional implications of the lack of verbal agreement, is lost in translation. .in the Piel carries this sense קום 6 7 4:8 may also indicate that Esther is illiterate. Writing Esther 37 of the Megillah’s history, perhaps mitigating or correcting the surprising presence of a female writer.⁸ Another, Holmstedt and Screnock’s view, is that the text deliberately wishes to place Esther in the fore- ground, highlighting her as the main, predominant subject. Alternatively, the anomalous form may be a deliberate intertextual allusion.⁹ Finally, it may mean nothing at all: Biblical Hebrew grammar is far from perfectly regular. However, the picture of evidence which I shall proceed to outline indicates that this irregularity is not merely an anomaly. On the contrary, the narrator is signalling that we should read Esther as the writer of the document. 2 Writing, power and gender in the Megillah: the theory I shall begin my argument by demonstrating how the themes of writing, power and gender are hugely can be situated within these broader themes, as well as תכתב prominent in the Megillah, and consider how how it can function as an intersectional nexus between them. Insights from broader conversations about as I shall proceed to תכתב writing, power and gender can be helpful for directing how we should read and demonstrate. 2.1 Writing and power Firstly, writing. The Megillah’s particular thematic obsession with writing and textuality, and its designa- tion of the text as a locus of power, is crucial to understanding why the presence of a female writer in Esther is particularly significant. The post-exilic period was characterised by a shift towards what Stern describes as a process of “scripturalization,” which featured a “shift in the locus of primary authority from venerated teachers to texts.”¹⁰ Post-exilic texts such as Ezra-Nehemiah foreground textual authority, for example, through the ritualisation of Torah readings and the inclusion of letters and documents as a source of authority. Niditch details the way in which 1 Chronicles evidences this shift towards a less oral and more textual culture, by sometimes transforming oral prophets in the so-called Deuteronomistic History into writers.¹¹ Esther unquestionably participates in this post-exilic process of textualisation. It is a hyperbolically metareferential text: that is to say, it is a text which draws attention to its textuality, and to the limits of textuality, particularly at critical plot junctures. It features a proliferation of documents, scribes and edicts, which function to characterise both King Ahasureus’ reign, and the Persian Empire, as paradoxically both oppressively bureaucratic and dysfunctional.¹² We are told in the exposition that royal edicts are unalterable (1:19); a vital plot point which will become significant later in the narrative.