Esther's Call

Fundamental Question

Where is God in Esther?

Secular Book?

Esther is totally secular book and it does not contain any religious charactersitics.

Perhaps is this reason that this scroll does not appear in Qumran??

Then How Could We Find Hidden God?

Form Criticism

Dear David

Shalom, how are you?
I miss you so much.
Let's praise God!

Blessings,

From Saul

Form: Letter

Sitz Im Leben: Correspondence between Two

Classical Form Criticism

Diachronic Exploring the History of the Text

Rigid Criteria Has to Incldue All the Elements Required

Dear Baal

Salimu, how are you?
I miss you so much.
Really so much!!
Let's praise the gods!

Blessings,

From Ashera

This reflects the earlier period before the first temple period!

Study on the Call Narrative Based on Classical Form Criticism

N. Habel The prophetic call is to show that the prophets are successors of the authentic leaders like Moses and Gideon

W. Richter The prophetic call is to show that the prophets have the charsmatic leadership(נגיד) like Saul

Study on the Call Narrative Based on Classical Form Criticism

N. Habel's Criteria Divine Confrontation, Introductory Word, Commission, Objection, Reassurance, Sign

W. Richter's Criteria Description of Distress, Commission, Objection, Reassurance, Sign

Study on the Call Narrative Based on Classical Form Criticism

N. Habel stressed the religious characteristics of the prophetic call (divine commissioning). So he ignored the story of human commissioning (1Sam 9).

W. Richter stressed the military/charismatic characterics of the prophets. So he eliminated the element of the divine confrontation.

Study on the Call Narrative Based on Classical Form Criticism

Their methodological criteria were derived from their own theoretical assumption. So it seems that they miss the fundamental characteristics of the Call Narrative

Type-Scene as Literary Convention

Convention The type-scene has plausibly connected with the special needs of oral composition and there are certain fixed situations which the poet is expected to include in his narrative and which he must perform according to a set of order of motifs.
(R. Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative, p.50)

Classical Form Criticism and Literary Convention

The individual characteristics of Moses' call

In the Moses' call, Y. Amit finds that there is a special “extension” of the stages of refusal, encouragement and signs with a different order. This individuality reflects the unique intention of the author which emphasizes the great responsibility and important mission of Moses, the greatest among the Israelite leaders.(Y. Amit, Reading the Biblical Narrative, p.65)

Call Type-Scenes in Bible

Fundamental Function of Call Type-Scene

To depict that the certain commission is personally imposed to the appointee through the authoritative appointer’s persuasion and the appointee’s status is radically changed.

Psychological Implications of the Call

Life Change - Stressful Event
Dohrenwend defines the stressful life as “objective events that disrupt or threaten to disrupt the individual’s usual activities.”

Psychological Implications of the Call

Life Change - Stressful Event
A radical change in the call type-scene induces a stressful influence on the appointees who confronted the major life change through the call.

Psychological Implications of the Call

J. Campbell
The myths and folk tales of the whole world make clear that the refusal is essentially a refusal to give up what one takes to be one’s own interest. The future is regarded not in terms of an unremitting cries of deaths and births, but as though one’s present system of ideals, virtues, goals, and advantages were to be fixed and made secure.

Psychological Implications of the Call

J. Campbell
The literature of psychoanalysis abounds in examples of such desperate fixations. What they represent is an impotence to put off the infantile ego, with its sphere of emotional relationships and ideals. One is bound in by the walls of childhood; the father and mother stand as threshold guardians, and the timorous soul, fearful of some punishment, fails to make the passage through the door and come to birth in the world without.

Psychological Implications of the Call

Jeremiah's Unwillingness and God's response

כי-נער אנכי (Jer. 1:6)
אל-תאמר נער (Jer. 1:7)

Breaking the Childhood

Psychological Implications of the Call

the call type-scene tries to show that the appointees confronted difficult challenges to move themselves to an unknown future in accordance with their changed status.

Call of Ambassador

- Appointer: Human
- Mission: Secular
- There is no visual or miraculous sign, rather the human appointer's persuation based on his own experiences is given.

Call of Saviors

- Appointer: God or Human
- Mission: Salvific, Military
- The burden of the mission is quite stressed, and generally the appointees express objections. But the miraculous and visible signs are offered by the appointers. And the appointee's changed status is noticed by the public.

Call of Prophet

- Appointer: God
- Mission: Prophet
- The appontees reveal their unwillingness to take a prophetic task. And their changed status is not noticed by the public. It emphasizes their loneliness and struggle in asserting the credibility of their prophecy.

Call of Esther

Characteristics of Esther's Call

Hiddeness

Uncertainty

Charscteristics of Heroic Call

National Distress When Jews cried out, there was not clear divine response. Rather there was the response of "agitated feeling"(ותתחלחל) of Esther.

Apprehension Esther reveals her inability to conduct the imposed mission. This element elucidates the massive weightiness of the salvific mission.

Charscteristics of Heroic Call

Apprehension and Persuation Esther revealed her inability to take a task(4:11). Mordecai just offered obscure prediction and argument(v.14), because he was not a divine being, nor a prophet. Esther eventually took a salvific mission, but with uncertainty(v.16 אבדתי אבדתי).

Charscteristics of Heroic Call

This peculiar circumstance of Esther seems to direct our attention to the great weight of Esther’s decision in accepting the imposed mission. Nothing was guaranteed for her mission to succeed and everything was obscure and unpredictable. However, Esther decided to devote herself 89to the salvation of the Jews. Esther 4 explicitly emphasizes the great human responsibility in the salvific mission.

Charscteristics of Prophetic Call

Mission Against the Appontee's Will She had to go against the Persian rules and customs in order to conduct her mission. As the prophets who had to tell the people of Israel to change their ways, Esther is required to tell Ahasuerus to change his ways. And Esther’s first commandment was to assemble Jews and to conduct the Jewish custom, the fasting.

Charscteristics of Prophetic Call

In the Persian period, one could not expect a military leadership for the Jews’ salvation. Esther was not a military commander who could organize an army. She could only fight with “words of judgement” like the writing prophets. Although her mission was fundamentally a salvific mission, she had to utilize the prophetic way in order to achieve the salvation of the Jews.

Conclusions

I assume that the character of Esther is modeled based on the preceding biblical saviors and prophets. The Persian periods reflect a new era which lack the prophets and heroic military leaders. By adapting the call type-scene to Esther, therefore, the author intended to show that a commissioned savior and prophet of the diaspora Jews still existed, even when the diaspora Jews could no longer have a definite hope in military victory or prophetic activity.

Conclusions

In other call type-scenes, the appointees come to have a strong conviction by their belief in God’s involvement, even when the appointers were human. However, this kind of conviction is totally absent in Esther’s call type-scene, because there is no expectation here for a miraculous success by way of the divine involvement. Rather, Esther had to accept the imposed mission based on her own decision and her strong sympathy towards Mordecai and the Jews.

Conclusions

In order to save the Jews, however, she had to abandon her safe self-identity as the king’s wife. Thus it seems that Esther’s challenge and struggle are greater than that of any other appointees. Without any definite conviction in her ethnic identity or the success of the imposed mission, she decided to sacrifice herself for her people.

Conclusions

Esther eventually reflects the substantial shift of recognizing the way of divine involvement. Since the end of the era of the prophet and charismatic leaders, God and HIS will were not recognized visually and explicitly. The people would begin to realize HIS will through their life experiences. Esther seems to show this tendency more extremely, because it depicts the diaspora setting, apart from the religious center, Jerusalem, without Temple.

Conclusions