people from destruction. It developed through a process that we cannot reconstruct with any certainty. The story was tailored to justify the most raucous celebration of the Jewish year, but it was far more than that: it was also designed to encourage a sense of pride in Jewish ethnic identity and thereby discourage the assimilation of the race. Esther’s approach was more nationalistic and less pietistic than, say, Daniel, or Judith, or Jubilees. Yet it would be a mistake to say that the book lacks