Young Christian girls all over the world have been told the story of Esther. For generation upon generation these same girls are taught to aspire to be like her, but the full story of her life is not told in its entirety. There are three main areas in the story of Esther that need examining more fully before the Christian world puts Esther up on a pedestal. The first is that God is left out completely from the book of Esther. Secondly is that sex is a common theme that runs through the entire book. Thirdly, that Vashti was not “the bad queen”.

Most people know that references to God in the book of Esther are non-existent, at least in a blatantly obvious sense. It is amazing, however, that this fact is often left out when there is a re-telling of this story. God is often put into the story, when in the Bible version His voice is left silent. Why is His voice silent? Authorities seem to have few answers for this. “Though God’s name does not appear in the entire book, His providence is manifest throughout.” (The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary: 1976 p.461) Some would argue that the reason God is left out is because it was being a little truer to what normal human life is like. On a daily basis, humans don’t know what God is planning or what He is currently doing in our lives. Humans can not see it straight away. This leaves mankind with a feeling that He isn’t there at all. The story of Esther deals with that as well, however. Although He isn’t mentioned, it is easy to get the feeling that He is moving events behind the scenes. It is most evident threw Mordecai’s words to Esther, “Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14b) God isn’t mentioned but one can almost feel that Mordecai is the voice of consciousness, proclaiming and reminding God is still working. When God is thrust into this story, His every day use is lost. The story is seen as another Bible story that doesn’t have much every day use. When the story is told as it is written in the Bible, the realization that God does not have to be mentioned or directly shown to still be powerful becomes clear.

To children, Bible stories are often devoid of sex unless sex is shown in a bad light. If God created sex, then shouldn’t the parts of the Bible that show sex in a positive light be told to children? The simple answer by most, is no. Starting from the Catholic church all the way to present day Christians, the church has held that sex is only valid inside a marriage. They then quietly add to that statement that sex, however, shouldn’t be enjoyed even in that arrangement. Esther’s ascent to the throne causes some serious problems with the traditional Christian way of thinking. “Then the king‘s servants who attended him said: let beautiful young virgins be sought for the king; and let the king appoint officers in all the provinces of his kingdom, that they may gather all the beautiful young virgins to Shushan the citadel, into the women‘s quarters, under the custody of Hegai the king’s eunuch custodian of the women. And let beauty preparations be given them. Then let the young woman who pleases the king be queen instead of Vashti. This thing pleased the king, and he did so.” (Esther 2:2-4) “In the evening [the young women] went [to the king], and in the morning she returned to the second house of the women, to the custody of Shaashgaz, the king’s eunuch who kept the concubines. She would not go in to the king again unless the king delighted in her and called for her by name.” (Esther 2:14) Esther’s rise to the throne was the direct result of her ability to give the king the best orgasm. What is worse there seems to be no negative results of her out-of-marriage sexual encounter. The story of David and Bathsheeba is often told to young children, while the story of Esther, in its sexual entirety, is not. The simple reason for this is, the light that sex is shown in. David and Bathsheeba is considered almost safe for a young audience because of the results of David’s actions. There is a definite, “look at what sex did to David’s life” message that young children are expected to get out of the story. It has been suggested that this is a vain, old-fashioned theory that if children are indoctrinated with the concept that sex results in bad things, they will avoid it. (J. Fautheree, personal communication, 2001) Most young adults, however, would easily rebuff this idea as fanciful at best.

In modern Christian society, Esther, as a Jew, is looked on as a moral icon. Most children stories claim she came to the throne by winning a beauty contest or they leave out how she got to the throne completely (Peretti:2002). While she was described as beautiful in the Bible, her beauty is not what got her into the position of queen. Some critics have gone so far as to say that Esther didn’t want to be queen. She didn’t want to have sex with the Pagan king (Papus: 19??). This is totally erroneous. The Bible gives no indication that she resisted the king’s command at all. The fact that she is the one that the king remember suggest that she was the best in the art of sex, which suggests that she didn’t have reserves about sex with the king. What is lost by not including this? Telling a small child of the age four that Esther won a beauty contest and therefore became queen is not true, yet the dilemma lays in the question, can you tell a child that young about the sex involved? The solution would seem to be not to tell the child the story of Esther until they are older, say nine for example. Then when the story is told all portions of it can be explained. While some would argue that telling children Bible stories that included sex in such a context would be harmfully exposing, others would argue that telling children lies in order to “protect them” is worse.

Vashti is another element of the story of Esther that is often misrepresented. If a survey could be done to find out what people think of Vashti, the general Christian population would have a negative response. She is seen as the bad queen. Why? The usual story is that she didn’t obey the king, therefore she was kicked out of his presence. She is therefore forever labelled, “the bad queen”. It isn’t true. She had her own party to attend to. The king was drunk and was asking her to appear before a crowd of drunk men, wearing only a crown. Her refusal was courageous (Bach, 1997). She chose to take a path that was almost unheard of in the Persia and Media empire. As a direct result of her courageous actions, Esther is able to come into queenship. In traditional retellings of the story, however, Esther is given the praise for courage and Vashti is given no honour at all. It is interesting that Vashti seems to hold all the honour and respectability that Christians have typically superimposed upon Esther, such as sexual morality, courage, and personal integrity. So what is lost if the story is told with all glory going to Esther? Simply that the story turns into a fairytale. The beautiful girl gets the man, the power, and the virtues; the other girl gets nothing. Children should not be taught that life and favour are only given to the beautiful. The job of the adults is to make sure that children understand that virtues and honour can be held by those who don’t win first prize, who don’t have the best looks, and who aren’t of any certain nationality.

In conclusion, the story of Esther does lose something when it is not told as the Bible tells it. A portion of its reality is lost. The ability to see a reflection of today’s society in the story is not there because the story has been made into a fairytale, or Princess Diana type story. The ‘nitty gritty’ of life is taken out and is replaced by the good king influenced by the bad minister and the beautiful girl getting the good king. (Goldmann, 1964, p392-397) When the story is told the way the Bible tells it, flippant virtues are taken out and in their place real life concepts are set up. Ideas such as sex can be enjoyed without shame, honour is held by more than the beautiful, and God is very powerful even when not blatantly present, are all able to be seen. The next time the decision must be made of how to relate this story to children, adults, or oneself, the words of Christ should be remembered, “the truth will set you free”.