What the Book of Esther’s Critics Get Wrong

The holiday of Purim starts in a little less than two weeks. At the end of the book of Esther that is read during it, the wicked Haman’s plan to slaughter all the Jews of Persia—including “small children and women, in a single day”—is foiled and, with permission from King Ahasuerus, the Jews instead rise up and kill those who wished to take part of in their extermination. The scriptural account of the Jews slaughtering over 75,000 of their enemies has disturbed the moral sensibilities of some modern readers.