Finding Morality in the Diaspora?: Moral Ambiguity and Transformed Morality in the Books of Esther (review)

This book is a revised and updated version of the author's Ph.D. dissertation (University of Edinburgh, 2000), portions of which have appeared elsewhere (e.g., The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 2.3 [1998]: 56–77). Charles D. Harvey begins with a basic assumption: "As a work of literature, it [the book of Esther] has always been pleasing, its moral content, however, has often been suspect." He raises questions such as why so many readers have been troubled, both historically (as far back as the Essene community at Qumram) and especially more recently, by moral issues in the book of Esther? Why this discomfort? Is anxiety justified when reading this text? Is moral uneasiness to be expected when reading this narrative? He claims that reading communities deal with the difficulties, ambiguities, and troublesome moral issues by transforming the material in order to ease tension via clarification, definition, expansion, amplification, and alteration.

Harvey discusses the issues of moral character found in three different text versions of the book of Esther—the Hebrew Masoretic Text, the Greek Septuagint, and the Greek Alpha-Text—all of which are considered "primary" by most recent scholars dealing with the narrative. Although the author discusses modern scholarly works as commentaries, he does not consider translations and paraphrases of the Esther story such as those found in the Peshitta, the Old Latin, the Vulgate, Josephus, Targum Rishon, or Targum Sheni. Perhaps he will do so in a later work.

Harvey's methodology begins with a description of the relevant moral content in the three primary versions of the Esther story and uses the term "moral character" in his descriptive efforts. Following the exegetical/descriptive analysis he then assesses this "moral character." His conclusion is that the two Greek versions (the Septuagint and the Alpha-Text) have in many ways transformed the "moral character" of the story as they have modified it for specific contexts and need (which he describes quite thoroughly and convincingly). On the other hand, Harvey documents how the Hebrew version of the story leaves much unsaid, many ambiguities, and "for some, much to be desired."

Harvey's arguments are well documented, and he uses a great deal of contemporary scholarship to bolster his position as well as careful, original, exegetical work. His writing style is clear, concise, and without jargon. Even more impressive is that this work does not read as a doctoral dissertation but rather as a scholarly study of a particularly troublesome biblical book. As Charles D. Harvey so cogently leads us to realize, in different ways questions concerning the moral character of the three narratives have led readers and commentators alike to further and more complex inquiries, one of the reasons which Queen Esther's story, in each of its distinctly different versions, has been and continues to be so compelling.