remembered by Jews around the world today. And the tradition is, and it’s an ancient tradition, that at the feast of Purim, you are allowed to drink so much wine that eventually you can’t tell the difference between the cries of ‘blessed be Mordechai’ and ‘cursed be Haman’.
This is related to one of the theories as to why the name of ‘God’ isn’t in the book. People were regularly so drunk when they read it, they might accidentally take the name in vain.
And so let us leave this tale of drunkenness, sex, and so much violence, and let us return to our original questions:
Why hasn’t somebody made a major motion picture based on the story of Esther?
Why is this book in the Bible?
The first question I’m not sure I can answer. The second question, I’m wanting to have a go at.
What’s this book doing in the Bible? It’s such a violent story. The characters all seem so ungodly. What sort of role models for our children to these Biblical figures make! It all seems so immoral, so violent, and so damn irreligious!
Maybe that’s the point we can get from this book. It points to the fact that there is an irreligious dimension to the Bible, as indeed, we might say, there is a very irreligious dimension to God!
It has been traditional of course to think of God as inhabiting a world of religion. God is present in His holy temple. God is present with his people gathered. God is at work through the prayers of those who serve him bringing miracles and healings and salvation and life. And all this is true.
And yet we know too that God who is present in His holy temple is also present in the palace of pagan king Xerxes at Susa. We