Esther in the Dead Sea Scrolls?

From the July-August 2024 Let the Stones Speak Magazine Issue

Only one biblical book is missing from the massive corpus of manuscripts. Or is it?

The book of Esther is notable among the biblical canon for being one of the last books to be written and the last to be canonized. There are numerous peculiarities about this book of the Bible. It is common knowledge that among the famous Dead Sea Scrolls (a trove of fragmentary manuscripts dating variously from the third century b.c.e. to the first century c.e.), this is the only biblical book missing entirely.

The fact that Esther is missing from the Dead Sea Scrolls has, in part, led to various speculations about the authenticity of the Esther account. Some even question whether the book was originally included in the biblical canon. One of the main arguments against Esther being part of the Bible revolves around the Dead Sea Scrolls. This enormous trove of preserved and partially preserved works contain a total of around 800 scrolls, roughly 30 percent of which are associated with biblical texts. Text from every book of the Bible except Esther has been found on the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Is Esther’s apparent exclusion from the Dead Sea Scrolls proof against its canonicity?

In his article “Should She Stay or Should She Go? The Canonicity of Esther,” Stephen Curto wrote:

[This] objection, that Esther is absent from the Dead Sea Scrolls, is a more worthwhile argument for those who oppose canonicity. The Dead Sea Scrolls are easily the most significant archaeological discovery of the past century and possibly millennium. It is the most comprehensive collection of Old Testament manuscripts discovered to date. … There were fragments from every single Old Testament book found at Qumran, the location of the discovery, except Esther.

Thus, theories have prevailed that Esther had not yet, at this late turn-of-the-millennium period (centuries after the events it describes), officially entered the biblical canon—due in large part to a lack of trust in its authenticity.

One recourse of explanation in defense of Esther is that numerous Dead Sea Scroll fragments—charred, disintegrated and faded—are entirely unreadable, and thus may have contained Esther material. There is also the inferiority of the argument of silence, as Curto noted in his article: Just because something hasn’t been discovered, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

View of the Dead Sea from one of the Qumran caves, in the years after the scrolls were found.

Another explanation is that the book of Esther is itself a small work, which would leave less of a “footprint” among the Dead Sea Scrolls. The same could be said of the book of Nehemiah, a work of similar length also not found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. (The reason this book isn’t met with the same controversy is because Ezra and Nehemiah originally were a single text, and fragments of text within the Ezra portion have been found.) Another explanation is that since the book of Esther does not contain the name of God, it did not need to be ritually preserved or buried (a traditional Jewish practice derived from Deuteronomy 12:3-4, to prevent damage to the “name of God”).

Finally, there is an elephant in the room—the Qumran community were themselves seen by the Jewish community at the time as a group of “religious wackos,” monastic desert pariahs from the central Jewish communities and sects, with numerous fringe beliefs (including an entirely different solar calendar); thus, they should not be seen as representative, consequential preservers of scripture or doctrine.

These are all valid points. But what if none of them are necessary? Despite the lack of direct evidence of an Esther scroll itself, certain other manuscript discoveries from Qumran do indicate that the community was not only aware of but entirely conversant with the book of Esther.

1QapGen

The rather mundanely-named Dead Sea Scroll fragments 1QapGen and 4QprEsth ar constitute apocryphal, late Aramaic fragments among the Dead Sea Scrolls. 1QapGen (the “Genesis Apocryphon”) expounds on an incident at pharaoh’s court involving Abraham and Sarah, using remarkably similar language to the account of Esther and Mordecai in the court of Ahasuerus. And 4QprEsth ar constitutes six fragment clusters relating to some relatively obscure apocryphal story set in the Persian period, with linguistic similarities to the book of Esther.

The “Genesis Apocryphon” Dead Sea Scroll, during study

1QapGen was proposed by its researcher, J. Finkel, to be evidence of the preexistence of, and the author’s dependence on, the book of Esther (as published in his article “The Author of the Genesis Apocryphon Knew the Book of Esther (in Hebrew)”). For example, 1QapGen 20:6-7 describe Sarah’s beauty, as follows: “[A]nd all maidens and all brides that enter under the wedding canopy are not fairer than she. And above all women is she lovely and higher in her beauty than that of them all.” This is a parallel to Esther 2: “[T]hus came every maiden unto the king …. And the king loved Esther above all the women, and she obtained grace and favour in his sight more than all the virgins …” (verses 13, 17; King James Version). 1QapGen 20:30 further states: “[A]nd the king swore to me with an oath that cannot be changed.” This parallels Esther 8:8: “[F]or the writing which is written in the king’s name, and sealed with the king’s ring, may no man reverse.”

The similarities compound. In the Aramaic 1QapGen, “בוץ וארגנואן” is mentioned; properly, this is a very specific term referring to a fine linen of purple (as explained in Shemarayahu Talmon’s 1995 article “Was the Book of Esther Known at Qumran?”). The Aramaic account records this material was given by the ruler to Abraham when he was sent forth from the court. This word combination is only found, among the books of the Bible, in the book of Esther, and in two places—Esther 1:6 and 8:15—describing royal apparel specifically bequeathed by the king to Mordecai when he was sent forth from the court (with the exact Hebrew equivalent “בוץ וארגמן”). Furthermore, in the veritable ocean of rabbinic literature, this word combination is again only found in commentaries relating to Esther.

Individually, each of these parallels make for interesting speculation. Collectively, they speak to Finkel’s only logical conclusion, that the author of the apocryphal Dead Sea Scroll 1QapGen must have had a knowledge of, and drew from, the existing book of Esther.

4QprEsth ar

Research of the small Aramaic 4QprEsth ar fragments was conducted by J. T. Milik and published in 1992. He noted similarities between the biblical text of Esther and this enigmatic work, indicating a connection or understanding between the two.

4QprEsth ar^d ii 6 reads: “[H]is wickedness will return on his own [head …].” This parallels Esther 9:25: “[H]is wicked device, which he had devised against the Jews, should return upon his own head ….”

4QprEsth ar^d ii 3 describes honor being given to a queen, in the form of a “[royal …] crown of go[ld upon] her [he]ad.” This parallels Esther 2:17: “[H]e set the royal crown upon her head ….”

4QprEsth ar^a 3-5 read, in part: “At that same hour the temper of the king was stretched [… the bo]oks of his father should be read to him and among the books was found a scroll … it was found written within ….” This parallels Esther 6:1-2: “On that night could not the king sleep; and he commanded to bring the book of records of the chronicles, and they were read before the king. And it was found written ….”

4QprEsth ar^d i iv 2-3 describe a “man of Judah, one of the nobles of Benjam[in …] an exile ….” This parallels Esther 2:5-6: A “certain Jew … a Benjamite, who had been carried away from Jerusalem with the captives.” And in a line of text near this reference, Milik proposes the following reconstruction: “[תר]אנה אס” “[… as for] me, Es[ther].”

From left to right: Roland de Vaux, Józef Milik and Gerald Harding examining an artifact during excavations at Qumran (1954).

But Wait—There’s More

Besides the parallels in 1QapGen and 4QprEsth ar, Shemarayahu Talmon offered numerous additional examples of general text found at Qumran to show the community’s familiarity with the book of Esther. He wrote that “hapax legomena [terms that are only found once] in the Hebrew Bible, which are extant exclusively in the book of Esther and are quoted verbatim in Qumran texts, which were unquestionably authored by members of the יחד [Qumran community], evince the dependence of the latter on the former” (emphasis added throughout). These include:

Specific vocalization of words in “conjunctive structure with the definite article,” a “distinctive linguistic characteristic of the book of Esther.” For example, Esther 1:8—“איש-ואיש” and 8:9 “עם ועם”—among numerous other conjunctive examples—the use of which Talmon believes influenced the Qumran community’s adoption of this linguistic element seen throughout their other writings. (One extreme example of repetitive conjunctive structure is from 4Q416 1 6-7: “לממלכה וממלכה למדינה ומדינה לאיש ואיש”—“for all kingdoms and for all provinces and for all men.”)
The use of the word “תר” in order of succession, in “waiting one’s turn,” is found only in such manner in Esther 2:12 and 15 and is used repeatedly in the same manner by the Qumran community.
The pairing of the Hebrew words “light and happiness” (אורה ושמחה) occurs only in Esther; this pairing, while not absolutely certain, can be found on two Qumran texts.
The expression of “my wish … and my request,” found nowhere else in the Bible, is present six times in the book of Esther. The same form is found in another apocryphal Qumran text.
The stringing together of the words הפך ,שמח ,יגון ,אבל is found in Esther 9:22—and a similar line of text is found in 4QpHos. “While in Esther the phrase is used in a positive sense, in 4QpHos it is given a negative turn,” Talmon explained. “The literary transformation supports the supposition that the author deliberately quoted the expression in Esther with a pointed inversion of content.”

These examples are just a selection of Talmon’s evidence. The “employment of these phrases, which had no general currency in post-biblical (rabbinic) Hebrew, evinces the Yahad [Qumran community] author’s familiarity with them, buttressing the supposition that he knew the book of Esther,” he summarized. “The linguistic-contentual parallels with Esther [in the Qumran community] indeed support the claim that the authors of those texts were conversant with the tale of Esther and Mordecai.”

Textual Salvation

Considering this, is it accurate to say the book of Esther is not found among the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Qumran community? For now, the answer remains technically affirmative (for any of the manifold reasons described in the introduction). Yet that affirmation can also be misleading because, as the remarkable parallels from the late Qumran apocryphal texts show, there was a level of awareness and knowledge of this remarkable biblical work—and an apparently significant degree of familiarity with it.

As for the overall historicity of the book—despite widespread dismissal from skeptics—there is likewise a remarkable body of evidence for it. (See our article, “The Book of Esther: Fact or Fiction?”)

As such, just as the book of Esther is a story about Jewish deliverance from the hands of Haman, it appears that the very scriptural text itself may be “rescued,” in its own right, from the clutches of desert destruction and obscurity at Qumran.