In Unexpected Places: Ritual and Religious Belonging in the Book of Esther

Abstract

The religious content of the book of Esther is highly debated. Most approaches attempt to analyse religion in this narrative in terms of its similarities or dissimilarities with other texts from the Hebrew Bible. This article travels a different road. Applying ritual theory (more specifically, theories on rites-of-passage and ritualization) to selected parts of Esther, it explores processes of identity formation in the narrative in general, and their potential correlations with the religious identity of Esther and the Yehudite community in particular.