Ancient Persia and the Book of Esther: Achaemenid Court Culture in the Hebrew Bible

by Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones

Esther is the most visual book of the Hebrew Bible and largely crafted in the Fourth Century BCE by an author who was clearly au fait with the rarefied world of the Achaemenid court. It therefore provides an unusual melange of information which can enlighten scholars of Ancient Iranian Studies whilst offering Biblical scholars access into the Persian world from which the text emerged.

In this book, Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones unlocks the text of Esther by reading it against the rich iconographic world of ancient Persia and of the Near East. Ancient Persia and the Book of Esther is a cultural and iconographic exploration of an important, but often undervalued, biblical book, and Llewellyn-Jones presents the book of Esther as a rich source for the study of life and thought in the Persian Empire. The author reveals answers to important questions, such as the role of the King's courtiers in influencing policy, the way concubines at court were recruited, the structure of the harem in shifting the power of royal women, the function of feasting and drinking in the articulation of courtly power, and the meaning of gift-giving and patronage at the Achaemenid court.

Genres: Nonfiction

280 pages, Paperback

Published April 6, 2023

About the author

Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones is Professor of Ancient History at Cardiff University and a specialist in the histories and cultures of ancient Iran and Greece. He also works on dress and gender in antiquity and on the ancient world in popular culture, especially Hollywood cinema.

Reviews

[Luke Wagner · Rating 3 out of 5]

A difficult book to read straight through, because of the “commentary” format, but still enjoyable. Also, while I learned a lot of good info about the Persian Empire, I don’t think this book l helped me read Esther any differently (or better). I love learning about the Persians, though, so that’s still a win for me.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

Heard author on Empire podcast, talking about Persian Empire, and host William Dalrymple was appreciating how Llewellyn-Jones approaches the biblical book of Esther as a historical document, so I special-ordered this through the library and it came from beyond the Marina/MD counties system, from George Mason University in Virginia. It is formatted very academically, though he says he's written it both for bible students and ancient historians, both of all levels.
The context is very interesting and important, to know the setting in which Bible stories were written.
The concluding thoughts on finding the Persian influence in significant portions of the Hebrew Bible is very interesting and I'd like to hear more, though perhaps in a more narratively or analytically more interesting form.
In Chapter 1 on Vashti's beauty, and then in Chapter 2 on the beauty treatments, I feel he was collecting such a wide context that didn't end up being relevant to the particular setting, even if the Persian empire was then very vast, like lots of images of this is what the outskirts or just outside the empire considered beautiful but these weren't the Persian royals and now here's some idea of what they considered beautiful. And then on beauty treatments they showed several images of Egyptians with their elaborate eye makeup and hair, without it being clear whether these were from a time when Egypt was included in the empire or whether that reflected how the Persian court women were arrayed. Plus some images in the text were described as being containers for kohl (eye makeup) but in the image captions were described as perfume containers. In the section on concubines the images are again mostly from Egypt and citations seem to be more of outsiders' fascination with and fantasies about the king's concubines, and while saying that they weren't just sex slaves the text doesn't give much evidence to that effect, although I guess the mention of them being musically talented was something else.