Esther and the Politics of Negotiation: Public and Private Spaces and the Figure of the Female Royal Counselor (Emerging Scholars)

Was Esther uniquean anomaly in patriarchal society? Conventionally scholars see ancient Israelite and Jewish women as excluded from the public world their power concentrated instead in the domestic realm and exercised through familial structures. Rebecca S. Hancock demonstrates in contrast that because of the patrimonial character of ancient Jewish society the state was often organized along familial lines. The presence of women in roles of queen consort or queen is therefore a key political and not simply domestic feature.Attention to the narrative of Esther and comparison with Hellenistic and Persian historiography depicting wise women acting in royal contexts reveals that Esther is in fact representative of a wider tradition. Women could participate in political life structured along familial and kinship lines. Further Hancocks demonstration qualifies the bifurcation of public (male-dominated) and private (female-dominated) space in the ancient Near East.