Propositions for the Direction of the Historical Interpretation of Biblical Literature

Abstract

This paper makes three propositions for the historical interpretation of biblical literature. Biblical scholars should consider (1) the administrative role of so-called ethnicities in the Persian imperial program and its effect on the notion of identity formation, (2) the shifting political landscape of the Persian Mediterranean in the transitional years between the fifth to fourth centuries BCE, and (3) the evidence of Persian cultural revolutions in its western provinces. Using the Book of Esther, it will be argued that features in the book allude to the political and historical circumstances of the Levant in the fourth century BCE. While this provides a reason to place the composition of Esther in the Levant, it does not secure a date for its authorship because these three features of Achaemenid political and cultural history continued or were remembered into the Hellenistic period.