CHAPTER 6
This chapter begins with one of those really convenient
coincidences, the sort of one that makes many TV shows seem lame. And it just builds upon itself, making it
really lame.
The king is having trouble sleeping and requests that people
read him the chronicle of events.
(Heh. If the Persian chronicles
are anything like the Biblical books of Chronicles, that’ll put him to
sleep!) The readers go over the passage
where Mordecai thwarts the eunuchs Teresh and Bigthan – hey, our heroes have
names! Hi Teresh and Bigthan! The king wants to know what honors fell to
Mordecai for this, and is told nothing
at all. (Wait – didn’t Mordecai get a promotion or something?)
OK, let’s pause here again.
Boy, as if I needed another reason to rail against the king. This guy is Captain Clownshoes. He is utterly inept. OK, Mordecai should’ve been rewarded. I agree (sorry, Bightan & Teresh – I was
rooting for you, but from the POV of the king, your thwarter deserves a
reward). But the person who should’ve
been on top of that was …the freakin’ king!
He just now realizes that it would be good for Mordecai to be
rewarded? Jeepers. This king is the mostly thinly underdeveloped
character in the entire fucking Bible.
He’s a disaster.
Anyhow, apparently Haman is waiting outside the court,
because it’s convenient to the plot that this be the case. The king asks, “What should be done for the
man whom the king wishes to reward?” Haman, arrogant ass that he is, assumes
this means him. Show him off in all
manner of bling for all the city to see!
The king likes it and tells him to do this to Mordecai. C’mon now, make haste – chop, chop!
Haman is horrified, but he’s got to do it.
Please note the king’s late night scroll reading is the
turning point of the plot. That’s what
is so annoying. Not only is it just
random, but it sets in motion all that happens next. I guess you could argue that the turning point is Esther coming
to see the king (and that’s why he was upset and couldn’t sleep) but he didn’t
really seem upset when he left her. He
told her he’d give her anything and she said she wanted a banquet. It’s a little more dramatic in the Catholic
version where she faints, but that still comes before the request anyway (and
all non-Catholics don’t get that anyway).
CHAPTER 7
So it’s the banquet.
King Dipshit again says, “Whatever you ask, Queen Eshter, shall be
granted you. Whatever request you make,
even for half the kingdom, shall be honored.”
What a moron. Who says
this? What kind of king says this? Remember: he went 30 days without seeing her
before this time.
Here is where Esther makes her pitch: have me spared and all
of my people spared. We’ll all soon be
killed! The king: “Who and where is the
man who has dared to do this thing?” OH
COME ON! You’re an imbecile. AN IMBECLIE! You’ve just signed off on Hamar’s “Kill all Jews” plan and even
if he doesn’t know that Esther’s Jewish (only the Catholic sections have the
king show any awareness of that) is he really so fucking stupid as to not
realize what’s going on here?
Also, the king isn’t showing any personal remorse for
issuing the order. Sure Hamar was the
driving force – BUT THE KING STILL OK’D IT!
So the king turns against Hamar.
Not because genocide is bad or that God is good, but because Esther got
all teary and doe-eyed before him.
Wanna save your people from genocide? Find a hot chick to speak on your
behalf.
So Haman gets punished, and unsurprisingly the world’s
fasted assembled 50 foot stake it the means of his death.
CHAPTER 8
Time to start getting ready for the victory lap. The plot is now past its climax. Now to see how it all shakes out. Naturally, the king sends out a new letter
to preserve all the Jews from slaughter.
Hurrah!
That it takes a turn for the ugly. As long as we’re reversing the last edict, let’s really reverse
the last edict. The new letter empowers
all Jews to arm themselves and “to destroy, kill, and annihilate every armed
group of any nation or province that might attack them, along with their wives
and children.” Yup – along with their
wives and children. Also – gotta love
the use of “might.” If you think
they’re going to attack you, kill all of them!
Genocide isn’t bad, it’s just should be done BY Jews. It’s like Joshua all over again, only with
an absurdly implausible plot and a really horrible character (the king) in the
middle of it.
CHAPTER E
Welcome back to the Catholic addendum. This is just the letter itself. To be fair, the letter doesn’t have the Jews
kill everyone. But parts just reinforce
the anger and frustration I feel towards the book as a whole.
At one point the king describes Haman’s plan: “by intricate
webs of deceit he demanded the destruction of Mordecai, our savior and constant
benefactor, and of Esther, our blameless royal consort, together with their
whole nation.” Yeah, that’s a nice
depiction of the entire plot and reading it boiled down to one sentence, my God
does it sound stupid. He wants to kill
Mordecai so….he plots to kill all Jews?
Really? Can you say “overreach”
boys and girls? Also, what’s this
“intricate webs of deceit” shit? There
was nothing intricate about it? He
spoke to the king for five minutes & the king agreed to have all the Jews
killed. Man, people have more intricate
plans to get out of parking tickets.
Also, then comes this: “But we find that the Jews, who were
doomed to extinction by this archcriminal, are not evildoers, but rather are
governed by very just laws.” OK, I have
no problem with saying Jews aren’t evildoers, but …. THE KILL ALL JEWS ORDER
CAME FROM THE EMPEROR! I know it was at
the behest of the archcriminal, but Emperor Idiot still OK’d it. And when did he come around to thinking that
Jewish laws are so just? Less than a
week ago, he was fine with killing them all.
CHAPTER 8 CONTINUED
We go back to the traditional Esther narrative. Not much
happens. The letters are sent; that’s
about all.
CHAPTER 9
So now the massacre happens – but the Jews are the ones
doing all the killing, so we’re supposed to be all cool with it. In the capital
alone, Jews kill 500. They kill all 10
sons of Haman. Not for anything they
did – but because of who their dad was.
The king is so thrilled with it, that he makes Esther an
offer: ask me anything you want, and you shall have it. (Sigh – again, king, again?) By the way, the king really is happy to hear
what a nice job the Jews have done killing people all over the capital. He says they killed 500 here, “Why must they
have done in the other royal provinces!” Then he tells Esther that he’ll do
whatever she says. By the way, as king, shouldn’t he be upset at widespread
mayhem and killing across his land?
Shouldn’t he be worried about retaliation raids? Shouldn’t he be worried that those oppose
the order might want to overthrow him? Nah – hey honey, the people you like
dead are all dead! Let’s celebrate!
So far, Esther hasn’t done anything bad in this entire vile
story. But when you’re the title
character of a vile Bible book, you have to do something vile. When she’s given a blank check, she
responds by asking for the mayhem in the capital to last another day & for
the 10 sons of Haman be impaled. Yeah,
they’re all dead, but it’s the message, I guess.
The king agrees, and 300 more die. Um…hurrah? Oh, and we get
the full body count: 75,000 killed by Jews all over the empire in one day.
Excuse me while I forget to join the Conga Line.
Then we’re told that this inspires a two-day feast for Jews
called Purim. So that’s why this is in
the Bible. My hunch is this began as a
local story in a rural area (the Bible says the festival is popular in rural
areas) that gradually expanded to an empire-wide incident). Also, this explains what the chapter is
doing in the Bible. They have the
feast, so they decide to include the story.
Mind you, they don’t literally need to include it. The story of Hannakuh is left out of the
Bible. But if there was an actual
festival associated with this, and some people actually celebrated the
festival, that would explain why Esther made the cut.
Then we get a summation of the story. It’s entire worthless – just extra, unneeded
words telling us what we’ve already heard – and it’s not even at the end of the
book! Dumb.
In fact, the summation doesn’t quite end the chapter even,
as Mordecai & Esther send out letters making sure that Purim is celebrated
by Jews.
CHAPTER 10
Mordecai becomes the big man behind the throne, second in
power only to the king. Given what an
utter imbecile this king is, that means Mordecai is powerful indeed. And we’re told that Mordecai’s greatness and
power is recorded in the chronicles of the kings of Media and Persia. Nope.
He wasn’t. We only know of him
through the Bible. After all, this
story is fiction.
This chapter is just three verses long. Go figure.
CHAPTER F
We leave with some more Catholic addendum. It’s Mordecai, looking back, repeatedly
thanking God for everything.
There is a very weird last little bit where we’re told that
a priest in time of Ptolemy saw the letter of Purim – one that Mordecai or
Esther sent out – is legitimate. The
footnotes say this would’ve been between 116 and 48 BC. So the Catholic version ends on a note of
defensiveness, looking to prove that it’s a real story. I can see why it’s so defensive, given what
a hard to believe book it is.
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
Bleach. This book is
terrible; one of the low points.
First, despite the complete lack of miracles, it’s damn near
impossible to believe any of it. This
is too far opposed to the historic records we have from other sources. The emperor is an asinine, horribly written
and totally underdeveloped character – and he is central to almost all the
action.
There is nothing really about religion at all here. As famously noted, the word “God” only
appears in the Catholic addendum sections.
Oh, and it supports genocide. So far, Esther rivals Joshua for the “honor” worst book of the
Bible. Just crap.
No comments:
Post a Comment