The historical difficulties alleged against the Book of Esther, are chiefly the following. Assuming Ahasuerus to be Xerxes, which is no doubt a highly probable identification, it is said that Esther's position is impossible, since Xerxes had but one wife, Amestris, who cannot be Esther. Nor could any Persian king have married a Jewess, since there was a law that the kings should take all their wives out of seven noble Persian families. Such a feast as that described in the first chapter, where all the princes of the provinces were entertained for 180 days, could not have taken place, since the governors could not without ruin to the empire have been so long absent from their governments. It is incredible that a Persian king should have given the command, said to have been given by Ahasuerus to Vashti. The edicts ascribed to Ahasuerus are all incredible—especially the second and third. No king would have consented to the murder of 2,000,000 of his subjects; nor would any king ever have allowed at a later time those two millions to stand up and slay as many as they pleased of their enemies. Finally, the honours granted to Mordecai are said to be excessive, and such as no monarch would have allowed to a subject.
With respect to the first of these objections, we may reply that though Amestris cannot be Esther, she may well be Vashti; and that though the classical writers tell us of no other wife of Xerxes, yet it is quite possible that he may have had several. Polygamy was the rule with the Persian kings. Amestris was no doubt on the whole the chief wife of Xerxes, and if she at one time fell into disgrace, must have been afterwards restored to favour; but the accounts which we have from the Greeks do not at all preclude the possibility of such a temporary disgrace, and of the elevation of another wife to the first place for a time. As to its being impossible that any Persian king could have married a Jewess, it is sufficient to remark, that though the Persians had laws, the Persian kings were above the law, and could always disregard its restraints. When Cambyses having conceived an affection for his full sister, Atossa, asked the royal judges if they could find a law allowing a Persian to marry such a near relative, their reply was, that they could find no law permitting the marriage of brothers and sisters, but that they found a law, that the king of the Persians might do what he liked.[96] The objection to Xerxes feasting all his princes for 180 days is an objection, not to anything contained in the Book of Esther, but to something which the critic who makes it has intruded into the book. The writer of the book tells us that Xerxes "made a feast to all his princes and his servants" (ch. i. 3), and subsequently relates that the feast lasted "an hundred and fourscore days" (verse 4); but he nowhere states that the princes were all present during the whole of the time. Indeed, the reader possessed of common sense sees clearly enough that the very duration of the festivity was probably contrived, in order that all the princes might in their turn partake of it. The critic says, "it is not so stated in the text," which is true: but neither is that stated which he has thought that he saw in it.
The command given to Vashti is undoubtedly strange and abnormal. It was an outrage on Oriental custom; and as such the narrative sets it before us. The king does not issue the order until he is "merry with wine"; and the Queen refuses to obey, because she feels the order to be an insult. But can we say that no Oriental king could possibly have issued such a command? Is it not more reasonable to allow, with a German critic of the sceptical school, that the narrative is here "possible on account of the advancing corruption in Xerxes' time, and through the folly of Xerxes himself"?[97] Indeed is it not clear that we can set no limit to the caprices of absolute power, or to the orders that may not be issued by a proud and silly despot?
Considerations of this kind go far also to remove the difficulty which has been felt as to the main facts of the narrative of Esther, the intended massacre of the Jews, and the counter-edict allowing them to defend themselves and slay their enemies. Such facts are altogether out of the ordinary experience of Western nations; and it is not surprising that they have been met with incredulity on the part of those whose knowledge of the past is limited to an acquaintance with the course of European, and especially of modern European, history. But can it be said that they are altogether out of nature? that they have no counterpart in the history of the East? that they transcend altogether what authentic history relates of the doings of Oriental tyrants? Here again the German sceptic is more cautious than some of those who have sought to popularise him, and allows that from what we know of the base character and despotism of Xerxes it may perhaps be believed that Haman obtained from him a decree for the extirpation of the Jews, and Mordecai in return a corresponding counter-decree[98]. All that he objects to is, the fierceness with which the Jews set to work, and the consequent massacre by them of above 75,000 persons. This fact he thinks "incredible." It may be allowed that had the persons slain been, as the objectors suppose, "Persians," the circumstances related would have been extremely hard of belief; but it is on the whole most probable that there were few or no "Persians" among them. A religious sympathy united the Persians with the Jews; and it is scarcely likely that any of them would have taken part in the proposed destruction of the Jewish nation. The adversaries of the Jews were to be found in the ranks of the conquered nations, not of the conquering one. They were Persian subjects, not Persians. There is no reason to think that the loss even of 75,000 of such persons would have been felt by Xerxes as a matter of much importance. We must remember, however, that the number 75,000 is doubtful. The Septuagint version has 15,000; and this number is more in harmony than the other with the 800 slain in the capital.
Finally, to the objection that the honours granted to Mordecai are excessive, it may be replied, in the first place, that they are analogous to those granted to Joseph,[99] and Daniel,[100] and therefore such as were occasionally allowed to subjects by Oriental sovereigns; and secondly, that if there were anything abnormal in them, it would be sufficiently accounted for by the wild and extravagant temper of Xerxes, which delighted in strange acts and exhibitions of an unusual character. Haman, who knew his master's weakness, might well speculate upon it, and suggest extraordinary honours, since he imagined that it was himself for whom they were intended.
I have now noticed all the historical difficulties of any force or weight, which have come before me in the course of my studies on the history of the Old Testament. I have dwelt particularly on those connected with the Pentateuch and with the two Books of Daniel and Esther, because of late years the attacks of sceptics have been especially directed against those portions of the Sacred volume. I have left myself but scant time for noticing historical difficulties connected with the narrative of the New Testament; but this is of the less consequence, since there are no more than one or two such difficulties on which any stress has recently been laid by our opponents.
It has been said that St. Luke, in connecting the name of Cyrenius with the "taxing" which caused Joseph and Mary to go from Nazareth to Bethlehem, "undeniably contradicts history."[101] Cyrenius (or Quirinus) was appointed governor of Syria about ten years after the death of Herod the Great, and made a census of his province shortly afterwards. This census St. Luke is accused of placing ten years too early. The answer to this charge is, that the words of St. Luke (chap. ii. 2) cannot possibly mean that Cyrenius was governor at the time of the taxing; had it been St. Luke's intention to express this, the verse would have ran thus: "This taxing was made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria," and not "this taxing was first made," etc. "First," that is, which is manifestly the emphatic word of the sentence, would then have been absent from it. Evidently, therefore, St. Luke's words must bear some other meaning. They may signify, "this taxing was made before Cyrenius was governor," and so before that better known taxing which he ordered. This is an allowable translation of the passage. Or they may mean, and I think they do mean, "this taxing was first completed—first took full effect—when Cyrenius was governor;" that is to say, the taxing ordered by Augustus, and commenced under Herod the Great, was interrupted (as it may easily have been, since the Jews were very bitter against it), and the business was first accomplished under Cyrenius. This is a sense which the Greek verb translated incur version "was made" sometimes has.
Again, it has been said that St. Luke erred in stating that Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene (iii. 1) in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Cæsar.[102] Lysanias, it is said, died sixty years previously; and St. Luke has ignorantly made him alive, being deceived by the fact that Abilene continued to be called "the Abilene of Lysanias," after its former ruler, for sixty or seventy years subsequently. Now here it is in the first place assumed, without any word of proof, that the Lysanias who died B.C. 34 once ruled over Abilene. Secondly, it is assumed, also without any word of proof, that Abilene came to be known as "the Abilene of Lysanias," from him. I venture to assert that there is absolutely no ground for believing that the old Lysanias was ever ruler of Abilene; and I venture to maintain that Abilene came to be called "the Abilene of Lysanias" from a second or later Lysanias, a son of the former one, who is the person intended by St. Luke. Till recently, Christian apologists were defied to show historically that there was ever more than one Lysanias, and were accused of inventing a second to escape a difficulty. But a few years since, a discovery was made which must be regarded by all reasonable persons as having set the whole matter at rest. This was an inscription found near Baalbek,[103] containing a dedication of a memorial tablet or statue to "Zenodorus, son of the tetrarch Lysanias, and to Lysanias, her children," by (apparently) the widow of the first, and the mother of the second Lysanias. Zenodorus was already known as having succeeded the first Lysanias in his government. It is thus clear, that there were, as previously suspected, two persons of the name, a father, and a son, and there is not the slightest reason for doubting St. Luke's statement that the latter was tetrarch of Abilene in the fifteenth of Tiberius.
I know of no other cavil against the historical accuracy of the New Testament, that I can regard as worthy of being dignified with the name of difficulty. It has been denied that any decree ever went out from Cæsar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed,[104] but as Savigny, the best authority on Roman antiquities, holds the contrary to be certain, this denial need not detain us. It has been asserted that if the massacre of the Innocents had taken place, it must have been noticed by Josephus;[105] but this argument from omission is too weak to deserve more than a passing notice. Nothing is more familiar to historical students than the unaccountable omissions which occur in the works of almost all historians. Scepticism has searched in the most minute and unsparing way every detail of the Gospel and the Acts, and has endeavoured earnestly to find "differences" and "divergences" between these facts and those of profane history; but again and again has it been compelled to own that the divergences are slight, and the differences such as may be reconciled by natural and probable suppositions. The entire result of the searching criticism, whereto the historical character of the New Testament has been exposed, has been to show that not only the general narrative, but all its minutiæ, are trustworthy. No evangelist has been convicted of error in respect of any historical statements. Where a shallow learning and a defective knowledge of the records of the past have led men to think that they had found a slip or a mistake, and a shout of triumph has been raised, profounder research has always demonstrated the veracity and accuracy of the sacred writer, and has exposed the ignorance of his assailant. The historical character of the New Testament is, I think I may say, in the eyes of all sober historical critics established.