Esther, Empire, and the Emergence of Jewish Ethnicity

Abstract Recent research has suggested that the Teispid-Achaemenid empire, which held sway at the height of the period known as the Axial Age, did not attempt to change the archaic social conditions of their governed polities. The Persians innovated governance through the creation of a synthetic ethnic class, which reflected a prearchaic structure. The Persian imperial ideology of a universal kingship clearly opposed a Jewish theological and monotheistic worldview, which was more in consonance with the thought of the Axial Age, so conflict arose with the Jewish diaspora. This conflict is addressed differently in Biblical writings. While Haggai and Zechariah outline an eschatological model, Ezra and Nehemiah present Jerusalem as a spiritual center. The Masoretic text of Esther elucidates this transition to an “axialized” tribal/ethnic group within the Persian Empire. The book hints at a concomitant transformation to “axiality” within the Achaemenid empire itself, after which its policy shifts from conquest to consolidation.