Abstract

SPOELSTRA, Joshua Joel. Surviving the Agagites: A postcolonial reading of Esther 8-9. Old testam. essays [online]. 2015, vol.28, n.1, pp.168-181. ISSN 2312-3621.  http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2312-3621/2015/v28n1a11.

From a postcolonial perspective, the Jews in the book of Esther not only resist against and survive the Agagites, they also re-appropriate colonising impulses from their cultural memory. This article argues that the battles in Esth 8-9 contain several appropriations from holy war in the Deuteronomistic History, and, as a result, the said narrative can be identified as written to fit within the trajectory of the Jews' own imperium. This literary intertextuality is underpinned by three expressions of holy-war language and protocol: fear falling on the Jews' enemies, the Jews refraining from plundering, and the postwar hanging of corpses on trees.

Keywords : Deuteronomistic History; Esther; Haman; Holy War; Mordecai.

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