6. The Attacks upon the Book: The opponents of the Book of Esther may undoubtedly boast that Martin Luther headed the attack. In his Table-Talk he declared that he was so hostile to the Book of Esther that I would it did not exist; for it Judaizes too much, and has in it a great deal of heathenish naughtiness. His remark in his reply to Erasmus shows that this was his deliberate judgment. Referring to Esther, he says that, though the Jews have it in their Canon, it is more worthy than all the apocryphal books of being excluded from the Canon. That repudiation was founded, however, on no historical or critical grounds. It rested solely upon an entirely mistaken judgment as to the tone and the intention of the book. Luthers judgment has been carried farther by Ewald, who says: We fall here as if from heaven to earth; and, looking among the new forms surrounding us, we seem to behold the Jews, or indeed the small men of the present day in general, acting just as they now do. Nothing of all this, however, touches the historicity of Esther. The modern attack has quite another objective. Semler, who is its real fens et origo, believed Esther to be a work of pure imagination, and as establishing little more than the pride and arrogance of the Jews. DeWette says: It violates all historical probability, and contains striking difficulties and many errors with regard to Persian manners, as well as just references to them. Dr. Driver modifies that judgment. The writer, he says, shows himself well informed on Persian manners and institutions; he does not commit anachronisms such as occur in Tobit or Judith; and the character of Xerxes as drawn by him is in agreement with history. The controversy shows, however, no sign of approaching settlement. Th. Noldeke (Encyclopaedia Biblica) is more violent than De Wette. The story, he writes, is in fact a tissue of improbabilities and impossibilities. We shall look first of all at the main objections urged by him and others and then at the recent confirmations of the historicity of Esther.
Posted on: Thu, 07 Aug 2014 05:31:03 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015