Queen Esther before King Ahashverosh

Queen Esther's appearance before her husband, the Persian king Ahashverosh, is not the most dramatic moment of the Book of Esther, yet it inspired an unusual number of artistic works. In this episode, Dr. Wisse tries to explain why through a survey of those works. He suggests that, given how different artists' interpretations of the story were from the actual biblical account, we can learn something enduring about the nature of the Hebrew Bible's artistic legacy.