Hello there, my young theologians.

My name is Ms. Marks and I'm going to be your religious education teacher today.

And today we're going to be learning all about the Book of Esther who was a young Jewish woman who saved her people.

But I will warn you before we start that we're going to touch on some issues of antisemitism and discrimination and persecution, as well as think about the idea of sex, consent and the use of women as concubines in a patriarchal society.

But when you're ready, let's go.

So by the end of this lesson, you will be able to explain the importance of the Book of Esther and how she could be seen as both a victim and a victor in her story.

So let's start with our keywords.

Concubine, a woman who lives with a man and has sexual relations with him, but has a lower status than his wife or wives.

Diaspora, the scattering of communities of Jews outside of ancient Israel after exile.

Exile, the removal of people or a person from their homeland.

Patriarchy, a society or culture where men generally hold positions of power and authority.

Persia, an ancient empire where many Jews were living after exile from ancient Israel.

So our lesson today will have two sections: Esther, the Jewish Queen of Persia and Esther as a victim and a victor in her story.

So let's start with our first section then: Esther, the Jewish Queen of Persia.

Can you think of a story where a young adult saves the day? And I love reading books like this where there's a young adult who is faced with some challenge and manages to save the day, save the world or their community.

Can you think of one? Have a think.

You could pause the video and talk to the person next to you or talk to me.

Yeah, I love reading these kind of stories and I've got some examples here of ones that I know.

You've got Lyra Belacqua in "His Dark Materials." She saves the day.

Bree Matthews in "Legend Born" and Katniss Everdeen in "The Hunger Games".

And they're all actually examples of young women who go on to save other people through their story.

And today our story is going to be a bit similar in that we are looking at the life of a young Jewish woman called Esther who saves her people.

And this story is told in the Book of Esther.

The Bible is made up of lots of different books, which were written at different times by different authors.

And that's why I have a bookshelf here showing all those different books.

And the one we're looking at today is Esther, which is found in the history section in the Old Testament on that top shelf.

And the books of Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther, you can see that they're together were written around the 5th century B.

C.

E about 500 years before the story of Jesus.

And it addresses issues connected to the exile of the Jewish people when the Jewish people were not living in ancient Israel, but they had been exiled somewhere else.

And it talks about some of the issues those people were facing.

And these books are found in the Old Testament.

And here you can see where they're on that top shelf there, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther.

So these three talk about similar issues, and today we are focusing on the story of Esther.

And we are being theologians today.

And when we use the discipline of theology and religious education, we can look at types of text and interpretations of them, which can then lead to different meanings.

And when we read these texts, we can consider who the intended audience was to better understand their significance.

So who were they written for and what might they have understood about it? This can help us understand the meaning of the text within the context that it was first composed and the first people who were reading it and were passing it on.

So the Book of Esther concerns the Jews who did not return to Jerusalem but stayed living in the diaspora in the Persian empire.

So as I said, there's other books talking about this exile and living, and some people returned to Jerusalem and the books are about that.

But our book is about some Jews who stayed living in the place where they'd been exiled.

We've got Jerusalem and Susa here on the map.

So you can see the distance that people were living here, and this was the extent of the Persian empire at that time.

The story is about an orphaned girl, Esther, who's living in the home of her cousin, Mordechai.

So he's taken care of her and taken her in, but she doesn't have any parents.

And they live in an important city in the Persian empire, Susa, which is circled here.

So again, you can see that distance that it has from Jerusalem where people have been exiled from.

Let's do a quick check.

Is this true or false? The Book of Esther is in the New Testament part of the Bible; is that true or false? Pause the video and have a think and we'll see what you've done in a moment.

It is false.

Well done if you got that right.

But why is it false? Well, it's false because the Book of Esther is in the Old Testament part of the Bible, and it's from around 500 years before the life of Jesus Christ.

The New Testament is about Jesus and early Christians.

Well done! So let's look at this word diaspora that we've been using and it as one of our key words.

It comes from Greek, and when we break it down, we can understand it a little bit more.

It has these stems: dia and spora.

Dia means across.

So you might know the word diameter.

When you look at the diameter of a circle, you're looking at how far across it is.

And spora comes from speirein meaning to scatter.

So for example, if you disperse something, then you are spreading it out in a far area.

So diaspora, so to do with sort of spreading something across.

So the Jewish diaspora refers to the communities of Jews living outside the land of ancient Israel following exile.

So the Jewish groups are living in Israel, but were sent to exile to go and live elsewhere and were sort of scattered and are therefore known as the diaspora.

So Esther was living as part of the diaspora in the Persian empire.

So she's living in Susa, which is quite far away from Jerusalem.

So she continued to live there.

So, I ran a hundred years before the story of Esther is set.

The land of ancient Israel had been taken and was part of the Babylonian empire.

The Jews living there had been forced to leave, which is known as the exile.

Many were taken to live in Babylonia.

By the time of Esther, the Jews had been allowed to return to ancient Israel, but some chose to remain living in their new lands.

Esther is part of one of these communities.

The story of Esther happens while Xerxes was king of Persia, which was the empire which had taken the land that was the Babylonian empire before.

And he's known by historians to have led the Persian armies against Greek city states and ordered the city of Athens to be burnt down.

Along with many others in his empire, he was a Zoroastrian which is a type of monotheistic religion.

Records of his reign outside of Jewish and Christian texts do not mention Esther, but we know that he would've had a harem of many women with many concubines.

Xerxes had a huge party in his palace with a great amounts of food and drink being consumed by all the guests.

And Xerxes commanded his wife to come to the palace wearing her crown so he could show off her beauty to the guests.

The queen refused to do this and Xerxes became furious.

So he took the position of Queen away from her and needed to find a replacement.

So let's look at how this is written in the Book of Esther there.

Here I have a section from Esther chapter 2.

In the Book of Esther, in the Bible it says she was chosen to join the harem.

"Let a search be made for beautiful young virgins for the king.

Bring all these beautiful young women into the harem at the citadel of Susa.

There is a Jew in the Citadel who had a cousin.

This young woman who was also known as Esther, had a lovely figure and was beautiful.

Many young women were brought to the citadel of Susa.

Esther was also taken to the king's palace." So when you read this part of the Book of Esther, which is setting the scene for us, how are the women who are taken to the king's harem described? Have a look for the words to describe what they're like.

Pause the video and talk to the person next to you or you can talk to me.

Yeah, so you might have picked out things like beautiful, young, lovely figure, beautiful, and this word, virgins, which means they haven't had sexual relationships with anybody yet.

So you get the picture that these are beautiful young girls who are being taken to the king.

And historically, people think that they would've been maybe 15, 16, 17 years old.

So do you think there's any questions we might ask today about what's happened here that may be different to maybe what was asked at the time? Pause the video and have a think and then you can talk to the person next to you or talk to me.

So we might have questions today around consent.

Was this something Esther wanted to do? Did she volunteer herself or did she get forced into doing something? I think those are some of the things we might ask today about what happened to Esther in this part of the story.

So let's do another check.

Izzy here has got a sentence and you're going to complete it with the correct word.

The scattering of Jewish communities outside of the land of ancient Israel is known as the.

You could say, diaspora, exile or Persia.

Which one would best fit that? Pause the video and have a think and we'll see what you've done in a moment.

Well done! It's a, diaspora.

I could understand if you'd put exile because for a while they were living in exile, but that scattering of people living across different lands would be the diaspora.

Well done! So Esther spent a year living in the palace harem being given many beauty treatments before she spent a night with King Xerxes.

She returned to the harem in the morning but had made such a good impression on him that he decided she should be promoted to his queen.

Esther's cousin and carer, Mordechai had told her not to reveal her Jewish identity to the king, and so she had hidden this from him.

One of the king's palace officials, Haman ordered many men at the palace to kneel down to honour him.

Mordechai who was at the palace refused.

Haman was so angered by this and convinced the king to order the death of all the Jews in Persia.

Mordechai heard of this plot and told Esther of the plan.

She used her position as the chosen wife of Xerxes to reveal her Jewish identity and tell him of Haman's plot.

She approached the king which could result in her death if it was an unwanted advance.

Her actions worked and the king not only declared that the Jews had the right to defend themselves, but that Haman must be killed.

And this is remembered as a victory for the Jews living in Persia.

And as Haman was from a bloodline of a historical enemy of the Israelite people, it's also fulfilment of an earlier promise from God.

So let's go back to the text then and see what we can learn about the experience of Jewish people living in the diaspora in Persia at this time and the plot that Haman had to kill them.

So it continues in the Book of Esther.

So we're looking at chapter 3 now to show how Haman convinced Xerxes of his plan.

Then Haman said to King Xerxes, "There is a certain people dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom who keep themselves separate.

Their customs are different from those of all other people, and they do not obey the king's laws.

It's not in the king's best interest to tolerate them." So you can imagine him sort of like whispering in the king's ear trying to convince them of this plot all because Mordechai wouldn't bow down to basically worship him and say he was amazing.

So from this text, can we find a word that links to that key term that we have of diaspora? Which word here could kind of connect to that? Pause the video and have a think and then I'll see what you've done in a moment.

That's right, the word dispersed.

So here Haman is saying that these people are living across very scattered around which links to the idea of the diaspora.

And how could this text show that the Jews were keeping the commands of the covenant whilst living in the diaspora.

So they may not be living in ancient Israel, but they can continue to follow the commands and the laws that they have and that kind of commitment that they have to following God's laws.

How could this text show us that? Pause the video and have a think and you can talk to the person next to you or talk to me.

Yeah, this phrase here, their customs are different from other people.

And I think he's trying to use that to say that they're not following the king's laws.

We've got no evidence so that was what was happening.

But like I said, he's like whispering in the ear of king's Xerxes to try and get his plan to be fulfilled.

So this could show us that people who were living in the diaspora were still keeping the rules and the laws that they had even from before when they were not living in exile.

So time for another check then.

Which two of these statements are correct about the story of Esther? A, Esther has taken as a young woman to the harem of the king to see if she can be his new wife; B, Esther is told of a plot to destroy the Jews in Persia by her cousin, Haman or C, Esther reveals her Jewish identity to the king and saves the Jewish people living in Persia.

Which two of those are correct? Pause the video and have a think and we'll see what you've done in a moment.

Well done! A and C are correct.

B was not correct because her cousin wasn't Haman.

He's the one with the plot.

Her cousin was Mordechai.

Well done! So the story of Esther is the only book in the Bible that doesn't mention God at all.

So if you remember the bookshelf we had at the beginning of the lesson with lots of different books on there, this is the only one out of all of them that doesn't actually mention God, doesn't have God's name, doesn't talk about God.

But many religious believers see the book as showing the work of God, showing God working through this situation.

They might say the Jews living in exile were still following the commands of the covenant.

So it's showing that they still had that commitment to and that agreement with God.

They could say the story shows God's care.

God is caring for the Jews and good triumphs over evil even though it's a horrible thing to happen, to have this decree that all the Jewish people are going to be killed, actually God protects them and makes sure that doesn't happen.

God seems hidden in the story, a little bit like Esther's identity, she doesn't reveal that she's Jewish.

So we don't have God's name, we don't have God being spoken about, but God is working behind the scenes.

And God did promise in an earlier time, so earlier on in the Old Testament part of the Bible that a particular enemy will be destroyed and that enemy bloodline actually comes all the way down to Haman in our story, who is the enemy and he is destroyed.

So it's a fulfilment of that promise that was made earlier.

So as we're being theologians today, many theologians consider the intended audience of the Book of Esther to be of other Jews who lived in exile.

So we got this story of Esther, the community living in the diaspora.

So the people who maybe it was intended for was to perhaps encourage and share that story with other Jews who were living in exile.

And we know from later Jewish texts like the Babylonian Talmud, which is a part of the Bible but is an important Jewish text show this story was important to other Jews living in the diaspora.

So that was read and used by Jews living in the diaspora and it outlines the story and the festival of Purim, which is based on this story of Esther.

So we know it was really important.

And Laura's gonna help us think about why this story might have been so important, what hope might have given them.

So Laura says, the Jews who remain living in the diaspora after exile might have been given hope from this story that they still mattered to God.

They can see in the story that they can still keep God's commandments and still be helped by God in times of need.

So we've said that the story was really important to Jews living in the diaspora around the time of Esther and just after, but it actually continues to be important to Jews and Christians today.

So here Mahsa, a Jew, and John, a Christian, explain why.

So Mahsa says, "This story reminds me that no matter what part of the world we live in, God still protects and cares for us." And John says, "This story shows me that all people have the power to do good no matter what their circumstances." Time for another check.

Is this true or false? The story of Esther explains how God appeared to Esther as a burning bush and told her to save the Jewish people.

Is that true or false? Pause the video and have a think and we'll see what you've written in a moment.

That is false.

But why? Because it's the story of Moses where God appears as a burning bush and tells him to free the Israelite people.

Remember the story of Esther doesn't mention God at all.

So time for a practise task now to see what we've learned.

Explain why the story of Esther may have been important to Jews living after exile in the diaspora of the Persian empire.

And write a paragraph.

You must include the following words, exile, diaspora, commands and God.

So have a go at that and we'll see what you've written in a moment.

Pause the video and off you go.

Well done for your hard work there.

So I asked you to explain why the story of Esther may have been important to Jews living after exile in the diaspora of the Persian empire.

And you had to write a paragraph and include certain words and your answer may look something like this.

The story of Esther may have been important to Jews living after exile because they were reassured that no matter where they lived, they would still have the care and protection of God.

Also, the story may have reassured them that they could keep God's commands whilst living in the diaspora and that the Jewish communities were keeping God's commands in Persia.

So well done for your work there.

So onto the second part of our lesson then, Esther as a victim and a victor in her story.

So, an important word for us today is patriarchy.

And the word patriarchy comes from Greek and we have two stems through it, patri and archy.

And patri comes from pater meaning father and archy comes from arkho meaning to rule.

And you might know the term monarchy as another example of rule that's from one person.

Well, patriarchy is to do with rule coming from the father or males.

So the patriarchy refers to societies and cultures where positions of power and authority are generally held by men rather than women.

It doesn't mean that it's always going to be all men and that no woman can ever have any power, but the idea is that a patriarchy is when generally it's held by men and kind of geared towards that way.

Now the books of the Bible were written at a time when men held positions of power and authority.

And so we see them as patriarchal societies.

So they're written at a time when in those societies men had the power rather than women often.

And so it's written within that context of it being patriarchal societies.

And how can we see this? Well, one example is the use of female concubines and that shows us that that Persian empire that the story of Esther is written in was a patriarchy because concubines had a lower status than a wife or the man.

So the status went, generally the man, the wife, and then the concubines.

And the concubines were used for sexual relations as well as to bear children for the male family line.

And female concubines and by the way, all the concubines in the Bible are female, do not often have agency or control over their own lives and we rarely hear them speak.

So we hear this title concubine, but we don't often hear them speak, we don't know their story, we don't even know their names.

We just know that they have this role as a concubine in the story of whichever person it is that we're learning about.

And this is something that many feminist theologians have noticed when looking through texts like the Bible that there are lots of women who we never hear speak and often we may not even know their names and they are part of the story but we don't know their story.

So here's some examples of concubines in the Bible who don't have a voice and sometimes don't even have a name.

We've got Rizpah, who's Jacob's concubine, and he also had Bilah and Zilpah as his concubines as well.

Then we have an unnamed concubine in the book of Judges who has some horrific things that happened to her, but we don't know her name or her story.

There's unnamed concubines of King David.

So we've probably heard of King David as quite an important figure in the history of the Old Testament.

And we know that he had concubines, but we don't know their story.

And it said that King Solomon had hundreds of concubines.

And so this is his harem that he had with hundreds and hundreds of these concubines there.

And so we could see the status that they might have had in comparison to him.

So why might feminist theologians interpret concubines as victims? What things might make them feel like they could be victims within these stories of the Bible? Pause the video and have a think and you can talk to the person next to you or talk to me.

Well, we can bring in here the idea of agency and consent as well and the fact that we don't know their names and we don't know their stories and we know the stories of all the men that they belong to, but we don't know their stories themselves.

So have they been a victim of how these stories were written as well as what actually happened to them and their circumstances? So that sets the context for our idea of Esther as either a victim or a victor.

She has taken into the harem of King Xerxes as a concubine when she's a young woman.

We said she's probably 15, 16 or 17 and we know that she was a young woman, beautiful and a virgin.

At the start of the Book of Esther, we do not hear her speak and so we might see her as a victim.

Remember there's all those concubines that don't have a voice and don't speak in the Bible.

So there's various reasons why we might see Esther as a victim.

She's taken because she's a beautiful young female virgin, she becomes part of the king's harem and hides her identity.

So she has to kind of hide who she is and she's taken out of this situation where she was living.

She has to spend the night with the king as a concubine.

So this is the night where she's going to lose her virginity with the king and we don't know whether it's consensual or not and we don't know whether she wants to be in this situation and whether she's happy with this setup of being his concubine.

And we also know that before this she had been orphaned as a child.

So she'd already had probably quite a difficult childhood and she's being cared for by an older relative who's taken her in, but has basically allowed her to be taken off to the king's harem as a concubine at quite a young age.

Let's do a quick check.

Esther is taken to be part of the king's harem as a concubine.

Is that true or false? Pause the video and have a think and we'll see what you've done in a moment.

That is true.

Well done! Yes.

This is at the start of the story.

She is taken to the king's harem as a concubine.

But that's not the end of the story, is it? Later in the Book of Esther, we do hear her speak and we might start to see her as a victor.

And actually the Book of Esther follows a kind of pattern of how different stories are written where at the beginning it's a bit bleak and dark and it's not great and then something happens in the middle, which starts to change the fortunes for everyone and make the story turn around so that by the end it's victorious.

And it's around this point that we do hear Esther speak as she starts to change the story and we start to see her as a victor.

So Esther could be a victor because she was willing to do what was right to protect the Jewish people.

And she says, "If I perish, I perish." She's willing to go to the king and speak up.

She actually approaches the king uninvited.

So yes, there was certain rules about when she could and couldn't approach him, but she was willing to risk that and break that rule to go and speak to him to save the Jewish people.

She revealed her Jewish identity by choice.

So she wasn't like outed, it wasn't someone else who did that.

She chose to go and do this and reveal who she was to the king.

And yes, she did start as a silent concubine.

We don't hear her speaking at the beginning about what's happening to her, whether she wants to go or not, but she does transform that position through doing this action that she does.

So we could say that she's changing her situation and showing that kind of agency and becoming a victor.

So let's go back to the text then in the middle of the book, as I said, when things start to change.

In the middle of the Book of Esther, we do hear her speak and she says, "Go, gather all the Jews who are in Susa and fast for me.

Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day.

I and my attendance will fast as you do.

When this is done, I will go to the king and even if it's against the law and if I perish, I perish." So how could this text show that the Jews of the diaspora were asking God for help? What in there, even though it doesn't say God is showing us that they may be asking God for help and turning to God in this dark time? Pause the video and have a think.

You could talk to the person next to you or talk to me.

So we have this instruction to fast and that she will fast and they will fast.

When they're fasting, they can kind of call upon God and hope that she'll be successful in what she's doing.

And how does Esther show agency despite her position in this text? Why does this show us that she's sort of taking her future into her own hands and doing what she thinks is right? Where does the text show us that? Pause the video and have a think and you can talk to the person next to you or talk to me.

So the Jews show they're asking God for help by fasting.

And Esther shows agency by instructing the Jews to fast.

And she also approaches the king when as a woman she's not supposed to.

And Esther's instructing that the Jews should fast.

So she is telling them what to do, which is very different to the silent concubine who we had at the beginning of the story.

So here Mahsa and John are gonna discuss how Esther could be a victim and a victor in her story.

Mahsa says, "Esther was a victim of the patriarchy of her society.

Did she consent to becoming a concubine of the king or not?" So, Mahsa is really asking here about that beginning part of the story.

Was this Esther's choice to go and do this? And was this her choice to spend that night with King Xerxes that she did? But John says, "I agree and despite this, she used her position to save the Jewish people.

Ultimately she was victorious." Do you think Esther was a victim or a victor or both? And why do you think this? Pause the video and have a think and you can talk to the person next to you or talk to me.

So time for another check then.

Is this true or false? Esther was a victim all the way through her story.

Is that true or false? Pause the video and have a think and we'll see what you've done in a minute.

That is false.

But why? Well, we may say that Esther is a victim at the start of her story, but this changes when she decides to approach the king and plead for the Jewish people to be saved.

Well done! So let's do another practise task to see what we've learned then.

Laura and Izzy are discussing how the story of Esther shows her as a victim and a victor.

For each point they give, give an explanation or an example to develop their ideas.

So Laura says this story could show Esther was a victim when she was taken to be a concubine of King Xerxes.

This shows she's a victim because.

Izzy says this story could show Esther is a victor when she goes to speak to King Xerxes to save the Jewish people.

This shows she's a victor because.

So for each of their points, give an explanation or an example.

And pause the video, have a go and I'll see what you've done in a minute.

Well done for your work there.

I asked you to look at each point that Laura and Izzy made and give an explanation or an example to develop their ideas.

And your answer may look something like this.

Laura said, "This story could show Esther was a victim when she was taken to be a concubine of the king.

This shows that she's a victim because she lived in a patriarchy where young girls may have been taken against their will to be used by men." Izzy said, "This story could show that Esther is a victor when she goes to speak to Xerxes to save the Jewish people.

This shows she's a victim because she uses her voice to challenge the king, which was courageous and shows agency." So well done for your work there.

So let's summarise what we've learned today about the Book of Esther.

The Book of Esther is a story set in Persia at a time where many Jews were living there after exile as part of the diaspora.

Esther, a Jew, is taken to be a concubine for King Xerxes and then promoted to his wife.

Esther hears of a plot to destroy all Jews in Persia and petitions the king to stop this after revealing her Jewish identity.

The plot is stopped and the Jewish people are victorious.

Esther can be seen as both a victim and a victor in her story.

And now we have another young woman who saved the day that we can read stories about with this story too.

So well done for all your hard work today, and I look forward to seeing you again soon.

Bye-bye!.