Emphasis Preaching Journal

Esther's acceptance into the Jewish canon was attended by controversy. The story is a legend that explains the Jewish minor feast of Purim. It is an historical novel artfully written. The leader will encounter irony, humor, satire, and patriotic fervor. While the story is fiction, there is nothing fictitious about the historicity of the plot, the threat of genocide. In the past there have been some Christian reactions to Esther that need to be understood as biased piety that has contributed to anti-Semitism.