Behind | Esther and the Canon

The process of canonization for each Testament can sometimes cause concern for believers. God chose a somewhat untidy process for bringing His inspired Word into the world—a 1,500-year “publishing project” with about 40 human authors whose documents were copied by hand! While some books were fully recognized as carrying God’s authority early on, others were disputed until religious councils later brought closure to the discussion.

The book of Esther is one of the few Old Testament books that seems to have been questioned in the Jewish community. By the time of the exile, the Torah was long recognized as being the bedrock of Scripture. Esther was among the later “Writings” which were assembled in the post-exilic period. This book is not quoted in the Dead Sea Scrolls texts nor in the New Testament. The Jewish community may not have settled the canon question on Esther until the first century AD. 

One good explanation for the tardy consensus was the lack of God’s name in the text—something also missing in the Song of Songs, another disputed book. Esther also promotes a non-Torah holiday (Purim) as does the apocryphal book of 1 Maccabees (Hanukkah). The early Christian community accepted Esther as a part of the Jewish canon, although the issue of God’s name and the Jewish nationalism of the book have sometimes raised questions.  

If later Greek versions of Esther were attempts to make God more obvious in the story, that makes sense. But we have seen that the subtle but hidden presence of God is a powerful part of the message of the book.