Sunday, May 14, 2023

Roger David Aus on Hanging/Crucifixion in the Book of Esther

  

Hanging/Crucifixion

 

The verb “to hang” (תלה) occurs twenty-six times in the Hebrew Bible, twenty times of a person’s being hanged. Of these, almost half (nine) occur in Esther. Aside from Ahasuerus’ order to hang the rebels Bigthan and Teresh in 2:23, the term is used exclusively of Haman’s plan to kill Mordecai, which is then reversed. The evil advisor of the king, along with his ten sons, is hanged on the same “gallows” (עץ: “tree,” “wood”) intended for Mordecai, the Jew from Jerusalem (2:6).

 

In the LXX of Esther, the Hebrew תלה is translated by κρεμαννυμι, to hang.” Of these two LXX occurrences of “to crucify” (σταυροω), both are found in Esther, once in 7:9 translating תלה and once in the addition at 8:12r, the act located (outside) the gates of Susa. The gallows is called σταυροω, “cross,” does not occur.

 

In the “A” Greek text GK is also employed with the exception of 7:14 (6:11), which employs ανασκολοπιζω, “to impale,” and σταυροω in the addition at 8:28.

 

Josephus uses κρεμαννυμι in his retelling of the Esther narrative with the exception of GK at Ant. 11.208, 246, and 280. For him, the tree (ξυλον) on which Haman plans to hang Mordecai is not fifty cubits (ca. 22 meters or 73 feet) high, as in Est 5:14, but sixty cubits, a typically haggadic expansion (11:246). At 11.261, 266 and 267 it is called a cross, σταυρος.

 

In the above sources, especially the latter, a tendency to adapt the Esther account to later contemporary times is observable. Impalement on a stake was considered to have first been a Persian mode of execution. Crucifixion with a cross-beam was typically Roman. The latter emphasis is sown in Est. Rab. 10/5 on Est 6:10-11, where Haman tells Mordecai regarding his intention to hang him: yesterday “I was preparing for you ropes and nails, and God prepares for you royal apparel.” (Soncino English 9.117)

 

Legendary material regarding this gallows/cross grew rapidly, including the association with Deut 21:23 in 2 Targ Est 9:24. This Pentateuch prohibition of letting the body of a hanged person remain on the tree overnight is reflected in the removal of Jesus’ body from the Cross in Mark 15:42-43 par. and John 19:31, and is quoted by Paul of Jesus’ crucifixion in Gal 3:13. In Est. Rab. 9/2 on Est 5:14 all the trees of creation offer themselves as the wood for Haman’s tree/cross, the winner being the thorn. (Soncino English 9.111-112) Finally, Pirq. R. El 50 has Elijah state that the tree on which Haman is to be hanged derives from the Holy of Holies in the Jerusalem Temple.

 

In light of the above development of legendary materials regarding Hama’s gallows/tree/cross, it is understandable that early Jewish Christians could transfer hanging and tree imagery from the redeeming situation of the Scroll of Esther to another, for them redemptive event: the crucifixion and Cross of Jesus. (Roger David Aus, “The Release of Barabbas (Mark 15:6-15 par.; John 18:39-40), and Judaic Traditions on the Book of Esther,” in Barabbas and Esther and Other Studies in the Judaic Illumination of Earliest Christianity [Studies in the History of Judaism; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992], 10-11)

 

Blog Archive