229: One Night with the King with Michael LeFebvre

00:01:41:02 – 00:02:14:11
Dan LeFebvre
We’ll get into some of the details of the movie. But looking at the movie from an overall perspective, how much would you say is accurate? Is it over 50%? Less than 50%? Kind of a ballpark range there.

00:02:15:09 – 00:02:41:12
Michael LeFebvre
That’s a really hard question to answer, actually. Of course, there’s actually two levels of it. How accurate is it to history and how accurate is it to the Book of Esther? Because the Book of Esther itself, an artistic interpretation and and summary of historical events. So there’s a whole lot of scholarship that engages in, you know, the questions of of how the book relates to history.

00:02:41:18 – 00:03:04:19
Michael LeFebvre
So all I can really comment on here is how well the movie relates to the historical representation in the book and clearly they took a lot of artistic license. And clearly, there’s no you know, they’re not trying to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes because they know most of their audience have read the book. So they’re not trying to do anything tricky, but they have taken a lot of artistic license.

00:03:04:20 – 00:03:25:25
Michael LeFebvre
There’s lots of stuff they’ve added in that’s not in the biblical story. This Jesse fellow, Esther’s friend, is a totally invented character. The whole home scene is invented. A lot of the back stories of the various characters are invented, so there’s a lot that’s added in. That’s not part of the biblical story. There’s also a number of things that have been changed.

00:03:26:01 – 00:03:48:10
Michael LeFebvre
For instance, when Esther goes before the King and then invites the king and him into a feast, she actually at that feast then invites them to another feast. And the way that all unfolds is actually not consistent with the story. We’ll probably get into that further. So there are a lot of things that are changed as well for various dramatic reasons and so forth.

00:03:48:20 – 00:04:05:14
Michael LeFebvre
The structure is clearly based on the book, but how accurate is to the book? You know how degraded? I think I’m going to take the diplomatic approach and say it’s 50% accurate. Yes, because obviously the structures differ, but they take a lot of license and how they retell the story.

00:04:05:28 – 00:04:26:18
Dan LeFebvre
Well, it’s interesting mention to the book because one thing while I was preparing for this interview, I noticed that it is a, you know, a biblical movie, but it’s based on a different book. That’s actually a novel from Tommy Tennyson. Mark Andrew Olson. So it seems to be yet another step removed from the interpretation. So I wanted to ask you about some of the main characters that we see.

00:04:26:19 – 00:04:37:25
Dan LeFebvre
You mentioned Jesse, but there’s, you know, Hidatsa, her uncle, Mordecai King, Xerxes, Prince Mantilla, a Prince member can paimon. Were they all real people?

00:04:38:02 – 00:04:59:10
Michael LeFebvre
Unfortunately, I haven’t read that novel you mentioned, which would be interesting. I’d like to see how they did with it compared to the movie, but so the book does name a lot of characters. But they’re kind of just flat cardboard characters are just sort of names dropped in at points. And so to create the story from the movie, they give personalities to those characters.

00:04:59:18 – 00:05:15:06
Michael LeFebvre
Some are invented. Like I said, Jesse is invented. Rebecca, I think, was the name of the housekeeper is invented and so forth. But the princess and courtiers are names in the book. But, but they don’t have the backstories of personality that the movie kind of invents for them.

00:05:15:25 – 00:05:37:05
Dan LeFebvre
Okay. Okay. Now, at the beginning of the movie, we do see a scene where the Prophet Samuel sends King Saul of the Israelites to wipe out the Malachite, their order to leave no one alive but King Eggs Wife survives. And that’s how the movie sets up this sort of revenge concept that king egg eggs descend into a want to destroy the Jews.

00:05:37:19 – 00:06:00:10
Dan LeFebvre
The movie doesn’t really explain really about why this conflict started. It just suggests that the implicates were child sacrificing enemy, which is horrible. But I’m also guessing in that time it probably wasn’t really unique to the Malachite. There were some pretty horrible things that were going on around the world. But it makes me think that there must have been something that the movie doesn’t explain.

00:06:00:11 – 00:06:06:01
Dan LeFebvre
Can you set up some context, historical context around this tension between the Jews and the Malachite?

00:06:06:14 – 00:06:33:25
Michael LeFebvre
Yes. Although that’s one place where the movie takes a lot of artistic license, but it’s not unique. It is actually. So Heyman is called in the book an aggregate. And so as a gag gag was also a name of a king in another book in the Bible. And for Samuel of the Malachite, whom Saul had that battle with that you’re referring to.

00:06:33:27 – 00:07:00:15
Michael LeFebvre
The movie picks up on. So it is connecting some dots here, but it’s making a lot of assumptions on how it connects the dots. So first of all, about the Malachi, just very briefly, there’s actually no historical or even textual evidence in the Bible that the Malachi specifically were child sacrifices, like you said, child sacrifice did happen in the ancient world, probably in school cultures today, too.

00:07:00:15 – 00:07:25:18
Michael LeFebvre
It’s a horrible thing. And it is talked about it places in the in the in the Bible as something that is evil and detestable. But there’s no reference to the Malachi specifically doing that, I think. I think the movie sets it up that way in order to very quickly get the audience to side with Israel against Malachite. So it’s an emotional ploy which which movies do all the time.

00:07:25:18 – 00:07:54:11
Michael LeFebvre
So there’s nothing disingenuous about it. But there’s but historically, there’s no evidence the Malachite specifically or childlike, but the Malachite are regarded as sort of the most ancient peoples in the land that was promised to Israel that they came to later. They are. And they were Israel sort of oldest enemy when Israel came out of Egypt as slaves and were being led through the wilderness up toward the promised land.

00:07:54:11 – 00:08:14:20
Michael LeFebvre
The Malachite, as sort of the oldest peoples in the land, came out and were the first to attack them and to try to destroy them in the desert. So that’s sort of the backdrop to this sort of us or them kind of tension which which plays in then to the historical record. And for Samuel of Saul’s battle with the Malachite.

00:08:15:00 – 00:08:36:04
Michael LeFebvre
But it’s a whole assumption that that has anything to do with the Astral movie, because Esther as a book, never mentions the Malachite. And in fact, a gag is probably scholars think that is probably not the name of a person, but it’s a throne name. Like Pharaoh is a throne name or Caesar is a throne name. There are a lot there.

00:08:36:04 – 00:09:08:26
Michael LeFebvre
There was one Caesar, but there’s lots of Caesar’s after him. Similarly, Gag is probably the name of the throne. And so. So really what The Book of Esther is doing is simply by saying that Heyman is an aggregate. It’s just playing off the fact that, okay, he is part of this lineage of Israel’s most ancient enemy. And that’s probably all it’s doing is just just saying he represents the animosity of all these foreign nations that have for generations been trying to stamp out and destroy and annihilate those people.

00:09:09:02 – 00:09:34:26
Michael LeFebvre
And so he is connected to the most ancient of peoples with that vendetta to destroy Israel, to just capture that idea that this is an embodiment of Israel’s history, of fighting against enemies, which actually the movie picks up in a very kind of gratuitous and and completely inaccurate but interesting way by making his symbol a swastika. You know, hangman symbol is not a swastika.

00:09:35:00 – 00:09:46:21
Michael LeFebvre
That is all huge. But that’s that’s sort of a modern approach to the same thing of saying this is someone who represents this long historic effort to stamp out this people.

00:09:47:03 – 00:09:55:19
Dan LeFebvre
It’s yeah, it sounds like the movie is using some more modern symbolism to basically set up good guys and bad guys type concept and to.

00:09:55:19 – 00:09:58:16
Michael LeFebvre
Help the audience quickly tie in to know which is which.

00:09:58:21 – 00:10:11:00
Dan LeFebvre
In the movie, we do see some flashbacks of Hidatsa as a child with her parents. During the main timeline of the movie, though, she’s living with Mordecai. Do we know what happened to her parents and why she was living with Mordecai, her uncle?

00:10:11:15 – 00:10:31:29
Michael LeFebvre
We do not. All we know is that her mother father died when she was young and that when her parents died, The text says Mordecai took her in as his own daughter. But and this this is a common misunderstanding at the movie picks up on because Mordecai takes her in as his daughter. The assumption is he was an uncle.

00:10:31:29 – 00:10:54:08
Michael LeFebvre
But actually the text says that he was her cousin, that Esther was the daughter of Mordecai, his uncle, meaning they were cousins. But obviously there was enough of an age difference that Mordecai takes her as a daughter. That’s the way the text describes it. But technically, he was an older cousin. Oh, okay. But we don’t know anything about the parents or their background.

00:10:54:14 – 00:10:54:18
Michael LeFebvre
Hmm.

00:10:55:06 – 00:11:22:25
Dan LeFebvre
Well, going back to the movie, we see King Xerxes has this feast, and he sends for Queen Vashti. She refuses. Says she’s a queen, not a pawn. She’s not going to lower her dignity to stand before him because he’s been partying and he’s drunk. And it’s it’s a thinly veiled war council, according to the movie. So then following what the movie calls the protocol of the land, Xerxes then declares that there is no more queen.

00:11:22:26 – 00:11:37:09
Dan LeFebvre
Since she’s not, she’s refusing his word, basically. And then a search is launched for every made in to be considered the choices of whom we’re going to be brought from across the empire into the palace. It’s a pretty accurate depiction of what really happened.

00:11:39:00 – 00:11:41:03
Michael LeFebvre
So there are several layers here to sort out.

00:11:41:04 – 00:11:42:22
Dan LeFebvre
I’m sensing a way.

00:11:43:18 – 00:12:07:16
Michael LeFebvre
Exactly. It’s drawing off and interpreting it. But so, first of all, and this is one of my concerns with the movie and this is common in Hollywood. It’s one of my concerns. The movie’s across the board. So I’m not just picking on this one. I really, really appreciate a piece that helps the audience to enter into the story’s history.

00:12:08:09 – 00:12:39:10
Michael LeFebvre
But that’s really hard to do. It’s a whole lot easier to bring the story into our history with our cultural interests and values. That’s a whole lot easier to do. And frankly, it really can galvanize the audience for the causes that the moviemakers want you to support. And that may be where I have kind of a political concern with this movie, if I can put it that way, that the whole backdrop of the Greeks is nowhere in the story of Esther.

00:12:39:29 – 00:13:04:27
Michael LeFebvre
Hmm. It is true. Ahasuerus, which is the name that’s used in the text for the king. That’s the Hebrew attempt to pronounce the Persian name, which the Greeks attempted to pronounce as Xerxes. So Xerxes of the Greek pronunciation and has where is the Hebrew pronunciation? Both tie back to the same Persian name, which I’m not having to try to pronounce.

00:13:04:27 – 00:13:30:28
Michael LeFebvre
It’s a mouthful. So, yes, this probably is we’re pretty confident it is Xerxes that’s being talked about here. And yes, after Darius fought with the Greeks, Xerxes later took up the mantle continuous fight with the Greeks in this great battle that history has come to recognize as a turning point in the expansion of the Greek Empire and democratic ideals gradually throughout the world.

00:13:30:28 – 00:14:04:20
Michael LeFebvre
So from now, looking back, we see the battle between Persia and Greece as a great battle between barbarians and civilization, with democracy at its core. But that has nothing to do with the Astor story. Astor has nothing to do with that battle. But the movie makes a big deal of pulling in that aspect of Xerxes story and the way we remember it, to suggest that the Jews are allies of democratic ideals, that the Jewish ideals and the Greek ideals coincide.

00:14:04:20 – 00:14:34:29
Michael LeFebvre
Therefore, the Jews are a threat because the rise up with Greece, they are pro-democracy, they are democratic, they are anti-monarchy. I mean, yeah, biblical law has a whole lot to say about human values. That’s profound and really countercultural in its day. It has a lot of beautiful express signs of justice and care for the poor and the dignity of the downtrodden, a lot of beautiful human values.

00:14:35:19 – 00:15:12:19
Michael LeFebvre
But politically, Israel was never a democracy, that that political structure just was not a concept. It was a monarchy, too, just like Persia was. So this whole idea of this banquet being a thinly veiled war council and setting up the whole movie as sort of a you know, the Jews are allies of democracy, he kind of worries me that the movie might have sort of this underlying effort to promote a certain American, Israel political agenda against the Palestinians, maybe even.

00:15:12:27 – 00:15:38:04
Michael LeFebvre
I you know, I’m really pro-Israel, but also pro-Palestine, Palestinian. I think I think we need to have a lot of nuance in how we approach the political issues over there. And I’m nervous the movie might be trying to suggest an alliance of the Jews with Greek democracy in a way that’s that’s not that has nothing to do with the biblical story, but something that’s maybe on the heart of the authors of the book or the movie.

00:15:38:22 – 00:16:10:02
Michael LeFebvre
So anyway, so there was no war council, There was no all this discussion about fighting with the Greeks and all that had nothing to it. Rather has you was had just come to the throne and in his third year on the throne, he throws his his big celebration, which is very typical. You know, when you rise on the throne towards the end of one year, that’s the first year during your first full year on the throne, your second year, you’re just solidifying your control.

00:16:10:02 – 00:16:37:26
Michael LeFebvre
You’re setting up your own court, you’re stomping down rebels that that learned to take the opportunity of a change in power to try to. So the third year is when you secured your reign and this big feast celebrates that reign. And that’s kind of how it’s all all set up and yeah, and then and then all this feasting and display of his glory culminates with his bringing Vashti to show her beauty and she rebels.

00:16:37:26 – 00:17:03:27
Michael LeFebvre
And that kind of sets the context for Esther to rise. And now, I’m sorry, this is a long answer, but if I can, I think this is a point to maybe draw something else in the book that the movie misses. But I think it’s critical to understanding the story of Esther. A lot of people don’t realize it, but the Book of Esther is actually a comedy.

00:17:04:21 – 00:17:06:18
Michael LeFebvre
Huh. It’s a satire here.

00:17:06:18 – 00:17:07:15
Dan LeFebvre
Would not get that far.

00:17:08:21 – 00:17:33:01
Michael LeFebvre
Yeah, And and that’s kind of the way it starts if you. If it. I mean, here’s this. This king showing off all his glory. He’s got a six month long feast, and then the last week or whatever, however long it is, he has, the entire York City, all participate and and the grandeur is all set up. And he’s got all these funny name courtiers that are all around him showing his power everything.

00:17:33:07 – 00:17:55:23
Michael LeFebvre
And he’s going to show off all his glory with the final culmination being the showing off the beauty of his Queen. And then she doesn’t come and humiliate him before everyone. And that starts the whole movie, which are the whole book. Sorry, Which which really throughout the whole book, the King never makes a decision on his own. All these courtiers are making decisions for him.

00:17:55:28 – 00:18:18:02
Michael LeFebvre
He’s kind of a buffoon character, and the courtiers make all the decisions for him. He doesn’t really know what’s going on, and it ends up being this woman who humiliates him at the beginning of the movie and then another woman who gains control and is, you know, the powerful leader who actually saves her people. At the end of the end of the book, I keep saying movie.

00:18:18:12 – 00:18:38:15
Michael LeFebvre
I would love to see Hollywood create a satire out of this story. And that would really be more true to the book and how it’s told and all the the way that unfolds, beginning with this great king being humiliated by which in the culture is very funny, You know, a woman unseating him, you know?

00:18:38:20 – 00:19:02:09
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, Well, I think you me, you make a great point of like setting in modern times. You know, if we’re looking back on this, you know, as Xerxes the Great and there was this big change in history and it wouldn’t really play into that storyline to cast him as some sort of a buffoon that all of his courtiers are the ones making the decisions like he’s supposed to be this great leader that changed the course of history.

00:19:03:07 – 00:19:34:25
Michael LeFebvre
Yeah, and I’m sure that obviously he was a very powerful king. But so this is this is the place of satire. You think you’re mocking when you’re just mocking someone just to be cruel. That’s wrong. You know, bullying, mocking, making fun of people. That’s just wrong. But there is a place for satire, nobly done. When you are an oppressed people, you are downtrodden like the Jews were in Persia.

00:19:35:02 – 00:19:59:18
Michael LeFebvre
You are oppressed, you have no hope, you have no rights, you have no power. And here is this powerful oppressor over you. Satire is a source of hope. It’s a source of of relief to how we see it in our late night comedy. You know, when we feel hopeless about our government and what it’s doing. Where do we turn?

00:19:59:24 – 00:20:26:15
Michael LeFebvre
Late night comedy, which satires and helps us remember. They’re human, too. They’re a bunch of buffoons, just like we are. You know, it gives a sense of relief. And as a book of faith, what the Book of Esther is really doing is it’s assuring the people of God that though they look so powerful, though they are oppressing, you know, that there is a God of just us who is greater even than Xerxes.

00:20:26:22 – 00:20:51:28
Michael LeFebvre
And Xerxes is a fool who will fall to his own folly. So satire is a source of hope for people in oppression and suffering. And that’s what makes the Book of Esther really a beautiful and very valuable book. And it would be great if a movie like this could bring that out in a way that really communicates that sense of hope to oppressed peoples today.

00:20:52:10 – 00:21:12:04
Dan LeFebvre
You mentioned you mentioned Esther, and since obviously the movie is about her, but so far at this point in the movie, she’s not named Esther. She’s Hadassah. And there is a declaration, you know, we mention of rounding up all the women to be candidates for queen. And then there’s a scene where we see Mordecai as is comforting her because she’s one of the ones going to be called in.

00:21:12:18 – 00:21:31:05
Dan LeFebvre
It’s not likely they’re going to come for her. But if she is, then he says that, you know, she should forget that she’s a Jew. Mordechai says had access to Jewish of a name and then he kind of seems to pick a name out of thin air. Esther sounds like a good Babylonian name, Esther of Susa. And but, you know, only use that if you’re taken.

00:21:31:05 – 00:21:37:06
Dan LeFebvre
And then, of course, if you seconds later in the movie, she’s taken. Is that how Hadassah became Esther?

00:21:37:15 – 00:22:02:01
Michael LeFebvre
So that is, of course, an interpretation of how that conversation may have gone. We don’t know how the conversation went, but yes, they got it right here. I’ll give them credit. Hadassah is cousin who had taken her in as a daughter. Mordechai instructed her to adopt this new name, Esther, to hide her Jewish identity. That’s one of the themes of the movie.

00:22:02:19 – 00:22:27:08
Michael LeFebvre
Of the book. Sorry. And while the movie to also bring it up to, I guess but one of the themes of the book is this idea of when you are an oppressed people living in a land that despises you, do you hide your identity or do you own it? And that’s part of the tension is Esther, her and her cousins instruction hides their identity as a Jew, takes the name Esther.

00:22:28:03 – 00:23:02:08
Michael LeFebvre
But then that crisis point comes. Or she’s got to decide who are my people? And that’s sort of the crisis question that the book confronts us all with. Will we be true? Will we own our identity and our people? And that’s what Esther finally makes that decision to do and comes forth in great courage and great risk and delivers her people by by no longer hiding behind the name Esther, but identifying herself as Hadassah, which is a very beautiful name.

00:23:02:08 – 00:23:08:04
Michael LeFebvre
I love that name, Hadassah. It’s Hebrew for Myrtle, like a myrtle tree. It’s a pretty name.

00:23:08:15 – 00:23:31:06
Dan LeFebvre
Okay. Yeah. Yeah. If we go back to the movie, the candidates for Queen are given access to the Royal Treasury. And we see Haggai, The Royal Eunuch, is charged with their training, and he explains that whatever the candidate chooses for their one night with the king will be theirs for the keeping. And all the other women are turning looking beautiful jewels in the things in the treasury.

00:23:31:14 – 00:23:50:00
Dan LeFebvre
And then Esther tells Haggai it doesn’t matter what impresses heard or doesn’t matter what impresses me from her perspective, what impresses the king. And then she asks if he’ll teach her. So he agrees. And he gives her a necklace and says this is something that the king will find most pleasing. How much of that happened.

00:23:50:21 – 00:24:12:19
Michael LeFebvre
Which also, coincidentally in the movie, happens to be the necklace that was torn off her neck when she was first taken. So that’s kind of giving back to her the necklace of her grandmother, which is kind of ironic. A lot a lot of suspension of belief there. So, you know, there’s actually a classic movie trope. I can’t think of any examples specific I’ve taught my head.

00:24:12:19 – 00:24:57:17
Michael LeFebvre
But, you know, you can imagine a scene where someone, you know, a European moves into a third world setting and they give this outsider a black stone. And he thinks he’s being honored, but has no idea that he’s really being marked out for death, you know, misunderstanding the symbols and reversing it, that kind of thing. I think that innocently, what the movie producers or novel authors did in this setting, because the text does say that when Esther was given the opportunity to ask for whatever she wanted, they weren’t necessarily taking it to Treasury.

00:24:57:17 – 00:25:20:10
Michael LeFebvre
But yes, each of the women were allowed. You know, if someone played music, they could get a harp to sing or whatever, You know, they could ask for whatever they wanted to take the night with the king. And the way the book tells the story is that, after all, they took what she was told to take. She did not shoot, ask for advice, and it just took off, she was told.

00:25:20:19 – 00:25:44:08
Michael LeFebvre
The movie writers have taken that little line and I think misunderstood it in the opposite. They understand it as, okay, so she’s not asking for what to take. She’s just relying on their advice because she wants to please the king. And so she wants their advice. But that’s the opposite of what the text is actually saying. What the facts are actually saying is that she didn’t want to please the king.

00:25:44:12 – 00:26:09:10
Michael LeFebvre
Remember what’s going on here. This is a horrible, horrible thing. This movie, in addition to the kind of democracy side of it. The other thing that really troubles me by it is it turns it into a romance story. This is not a romance. This is a satire. This is a spoof of the gross greed and lust that often go along with oppressive power.

00:26:09:18 – 00:26:37:16
Michael LeFebvre
And here’s the embodiment of it. This Persian ruler who you know that not only the book of Esther, but Greek historians, ancient Greek historians, also spoofed Persian lust by talking about how these kings had a different woman for every night of the year. You know, I’m sure that’s exaggeration, but the point is, the Greeks, ancient Greek authors, as well as Hebrew authors, are all satire.

00:26:37:16 – 00:26:57:26
Michael LeFebvre
Bring the lust and wealth of these rulers who think they’re gods among men. And so the Book of Esther is not telling a romance story. Esther is not going in saying, Oh, you tell me what I should take to please the king. No is showing her that she’s just passively being pushed along. She’s not wanting to be here.

00:26:57:27 – 00:27:09:00
Michael LeFebvre
She’s not trying to please the king. So she only takes what she’s told to take. I think the movie has grossly reversed the implication of that line in the book.

00:27:09:25 – 00:27:26:01
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And it’s it was something that I was as I was watching you in the very beginning of the movie, it’s, you know, this this thing is happening. And you can tell the Esther or Hadassah at that point doesn’t want to be taken. But then when she does, it does kind of spin around. It’s like, okay, well, I’m going to be taken.

00:27:26:01 – 00:27:40:23
Dan LeFebvre
So I guess I want to please the king. It just kind of seemed like why is why is this being portrayed as a as a romance? Like, why why is it something that she’s wanting to go along with this, you know?

00:27:41:10 – 00:28:05:18
Michael LeFebvre
Yeah. Yeah. And who knows? Who knows what became of their marriage. I mean, obviously when she came in later, the approach is thrown. He respected her at least enough to extend his scepter. But we often impose our modern ideals of marriage, many of which are good, but not all which are good. But nonetheless, we do tend to impose on other sides.

00:28:05:18 – 00:28:29:27
Michael LeFebvre
And remember, this is a royal marriage. Usually, you know, a Persian emperor. He’s got his concubines, he’s got all the women he wants. The point of having a queen is to produce legitimate heirs, not to provide a partner, a soulmate. That’s that’s not what a queen needs to be. I’m sure sometimes it was, but that’s not what this was about.

00:28:29:27 – 00:28:54:16
Michael LeFebvre
This king was just looking for who’s going to be his queen. That will produce good, healthy, you know, good looking, strong heirs, legitimate heirs, concubines, produce all kinds of courtiers. But the legitimate heirs come from the queen. That’s kind of the main point of of of what he’s looking for here. So this whole romance thing, who knows, maybe something did come of the marriage, but we have no idea.

00:28:54:28 – 00:28:57:16
Michael LeFebvre
And the book’s certainly not telling a romance story.

00:28:57:25 – 00:29:22:06
Dan LeFebvre
The movie paints a picture of Esther as being a woman who can read in multiple languages. She doesn’t seem to be impressed with any of the material stuff, the beauty treatments that they’re they’re giving, all that stuff that kind of comes with being in a royal palace. But her knowledge even led to Peggy giving her the chance to read for the king, not as a candidate, but as a servant.

00:29:22:28 – 00:29:35:06
Dan LeFebvre
And it’s something that the movie doesn’t show any of the other women doing and kind of helps her stand apart. How well did the movie do showing how Esther was different or maybe treated differently than some of the other candidates?

00:29:36:04 – 00:30:01:02
Michael LeFebvre
So the book does kind of portray her as standing out, you know, that that she gained favor, that Hagai put her in kind of a favored apartment and and that the king obviously loved her most and made her as queen. So she was favored. But it doesn’t ever really tell us apart from her beauty. You know what actually it she may have had.

00:30:01:10 – 00:30:25:08
Michael LeFebvre
I doubt that she could read. There’s no evidence she could read. I mean, literacy rates were pretty low in the ancient Persian Empire. And for an enslaved, oppressed people, particularly, there’s not going to be like schools and so forth. She was very wise. I mean, the book definitely upholds her wisdom, but there’s no indication that she could read.

00:30:25:19 – 00:30:46:16
Michael LeFebvre
This is another place where the I think what the movie does is it takes a few dots out of the book and creates its own pattern out of it for the sake of its own storytelling arc. There’s one place in the Book of Esther where there’s mention of reading the Chronicles at night to the King. The King can’t sleep one night.

00:30:48:14 – 00:31:05:25
Michael LeFebvre
So the books of the Chronicles are brought and read to him, commonly repeated. And the movie repeats that this is somehow done to bore the king and lull him to sleep. That’s not the reason. But there is one point where he needed to consult the Chronicles in the middle of the night. So the read to him in the middle of the night.

00:31:06:08 – 00:31:31:15
Michael LeFebvre
And so the authors have sort of taken that little tidbit out of the story and suggested maybe Aster is reading them. And I think the reason they’re doing it is because, again, they’re wanting to play to modern cultural ideals of loving a woman for her intelligence, not just for her good looks, which is a great message. It’s really important to appreciate people for who they are, not just for their appearance.

00:31:31:24 – 00:31:55:17
Michael LeFebvre
So I commend that writers of the movie hold that value. But that’s not, you know, what’s in the Book of Esther. She was a very wise woman. But that’s not what the king was looking for. And it was her beauty that he selected her for, which, again, is part of us being sad, tired, as from and horrible.

00:31:55:26 – 00:32:23:16
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, it kind of goes back to some of the things that you mentioned before where, you know, the difference between society today and the society. Then just being so different. I mean, I guess in that way, if they had actually made made it a lot more realistic to the way society was, then it would. I mean, it would be extremely appalling and not the kind of thing that anybody would want to watch as entertainment in a movie.

00:32:23:23 – 00:32:44:08
Michael LeFebvre
Yeah, it’s it’s it’s hard to and as I said earlier, I respect movie producers for the difficulty. It is to take an audience into history. It’s so much easier to bring history to an audience. And so that’s what our movies almost always do. Yeah.

00:32:44:08 – 00:33:04:12
Dan LeFebvre
Speaking of of Esther being able to read in the movie when it is time for her one night with the King, he recognizes her from when she read the scroll and went on to tell the story of Jacob and Rachel. And then only a few minutes into their conversation. Esther says the only thing that she would accept from the king is his heart.

00:33:04:22 – 00:33:21:07
Dan LeFebvre
And he says, Then it is yours. You know, his profession of love. As I was watching the movie, I mean, I. I just couldn’t help but think, okay, this is happening super fast. She didn’t even need to spend one night with King until the title of the movie. She only really needed a couple of minutes because, you know, she had already established this relationship.

00:33:21:22 – 00:33:32:22
Dan LeFebvre
And a lot of movies compress timelines. Now, you you alluded earlier, you know, maybe we don’t even really know if there was love, but did this happen as fast as the movie makes it seem?

00:33:33:09 – 00:33:58:21
Michael LeFebvre
So a yes or no, as we discussed, and you yourself kind of brought out there, romance didn’t happen that fast. Romance doesn’t happen that fast. And yeah, so that that did not happen that fast. But yes, the book does say in the movie, right, that it just was one night and he chose her as the story’s told. Again, it could be at the book itself is compressing things.

00:33:58:21 – 00:34:29:26
Michael LeFebvre
But again what’s the king looking for? He’s looking for someone to produce his heirs. He’s not necessarily looking for his favorite sexual partner. He can he’s not limited to his queen when it comes to anything except who are going to be his legitimate heirs. So something in Esther’s beauty, her strength that he thought I’m going to say it as crassly as it horribly is, that makes for good breeding stock.

00:34:29:26 – 00:34:47:19
Michael LeFebvre
You know, they could be as simple as that. And so, yes, the way that the way the movie tells it is she came in for her night. And that night he loved her more than all the other women. And she found favor in his eyes and he sat the crown upon her head. Now, what does that attachment mean?

00:34:48:00 – 00:35:10:19
Michael LeFebvre
I don’t think we should read too much into that expression. He loved her more than all the other women. It means that whatever he was measuring them for, she was the one that he said, Yes, this is it. And he made his decision and made her as queen. Now, maybe he grew to respect her. Later in the story, there are certainly indication that he did respect her and to some extent that he extended the scepter and heard out her request.

00:35:10:24 – 00:35:32:01
Michael LeFebvre
But that took time. And we don’t know how that all unfolded or even whether there was ever romance or what we would call a genuine love story in this, The Book of Esther is not a model for romance. Don’t use this as a model for a good marriage at all.

00:35:32:28 – 00:35:40:02
Dan LeFebvre
Well, maybe I did, but the book does mention the word love, and so maybe there was some sort of a misinterpretation there. I think.

00:35:40:09 – 00:35:41:26
Michael LeFebvre
And the text uses the word love.

00:35:41:27 – 00:35:43:13
Dan LeFebvre
But not necessarily like in the role.

00:35:43:14 – 00:36:13:06
Michael LeFebvre
But yeah, in our own context, that can mean a lot of things. And, and the, the, the book of Esther is, is, is very delicately written. I mean, it’s a masterpiece of literature. It’s full of satire, full irony. It’s confronting and being very honest about the horrible things happening, but it’s also very delicately written. So, yes, it does say that when she went, she was taken to him.

00:36:13:06 – 00:36:36:19
Michael LeFebvre
That’s the language used, which is an idiom for. Yeah, she spent the night with the king. It was consummated. It happened. The movie kind of suggests it never happened. But, yeah, she was royally raped and then selected to be the queen out of that. The book is very delicate in how it says it, but it makes clear that that.

00:36:36:19 – 00:36:37:15
Michael LeFebvre
That it did happen.

00:36:37:16 – 00:36:38:01
Dan LeFebvre
It didn’t.

00:36:38:01 – 00:36:38:11
Michael LeFebvre
Happen.

00:36:38:15 – 00:37:01:05
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. According to the movie, Heyman devises a plot where he wants to take over the house and Wealth of Prince Atlanta. Then once he has a position of power, he suggests to King Xerxes that all the Jews must be killed so they can confiscate all their belongings and use that to fund new ships. And this plan was to be carried on on the 13th day of the month of Adar.

00:37:02:08 – 00:37:06:13
Dan LeFebvre
How well did the movie do showing this plot of humans against the Jews?

00:37:07:14 – 00:37:30:13
Michael LeFebvre
So that matter is one of the names in one of the early lists of courtiers around the King. All we have is there’s like two lists of like princes and courtiers, and they both have seven names in each. So it’s kind of symbolic lists. Just again, to paint the scene of this king with all his court years and all his wealth and so forth.

00:37:31:06 – 00:37:55:24
Michael LeFebvre
So the movie has invented this whole backstory out of a real name. Their secondly, there was a plot to assassinate the king. That’s told a little later in the story there was an effort by two of the eunuchs to kill the king. We don’t know why. We just know that they were discussing it while in the gate area, which is where Mordecai was working as a scribe.

00:37:55:24 – 00:38:26:20
Michael LeFebvre
That’s one thing the movie got right that a lot of people missed. But I thought, Man, kudos to them. Mordecai is identified in the book as one of the scribal offshoots working in the gate area of the palace complex. So he was there. He overheard the plot. So that also is part of the book. And then also the storyline does in the timeline say that it was after those things happened, after the plot was exposed just in a sequence of time, not necessarily connected as an event, but in the sequence of time.

00:38:26:27 – 00:38:54:10
Michael LeFebvre
It was after that that Heyman first becomes introduced into the story and is appointed as the second in command to the king, as his vizier or as prime minister of the king. So the the authors are taking these three points. This name add math, this existence of a plot to assassinate the king, which Mordecai overhears and exposes, and then the rise of Heyman, and they’re creating a story out of it.

00:38:54:19 – 00:39:17:29
Michael LeFebvre
But the story is not anywhere in the book that we don’t know anything about any effort of Heyman to unseat and matter. We have no suggestion. The matter was that you know, previously in that place he wasn’t. So they do an interesting job stitching together these actual pieces from the story to create a further backstory. But yeah. Heyman At the heart of your question.

00:39:18:05 – 00:39:26:21
Michael LeFebvre
Heyman was plotting to destroy the Jews and the movie kind of endeavors bring that out in its own creative way.

00:39:27:06 – 00:39:45:04
Dan LeFebvre
It does. The some of the motivation behind the plot, at least according to the movie, kind of ties back to the very beginning of the movie with the killing of King Agag. Was that actually his motivation? The movie kind of suggests that he’s exacting revenge on the Jews on behalf of his forefathers, suggesting that, you know, that he’s going lineage through there.

00:39:45:28 – 00:40:12:18
Michael LeFebvre
So I think this is part of the artistry of the book. Sometimes when you’re creating a story that’s designed to be a template, it’s designed to be a story that you can take to heart and apply in your own setting. It will deliberately leave certain details out to make it transferable. There’s no motive ascribed to Heyman. We don’t know why he hates the Jews so much.

00:40:12:20 – 00:40:33:16
Michael LeFebvre
He’s just one of those aggregates using the term to mean like the ancient lineage of all those who have tried to destroy the Jews. So the movie is saying, okay, what’s his motive? Let’s use what little dots we can and try to give him a motive. But I think that’s a disservice. We don’t know. And we don’t need to know.

00:40:33:21 – 00:41:00:24
Michael LeFebvre
The point is, this represents just that hatred that seeks to destroy. And yes, he did go to the king and say, listen, I’ve calculated that if we destroy the Jews, we can take their wealth and it will bring 10,000 talents of silver into the king’s treasury. But it wasn’t to build ships or anything like that. The way the story is told.

00:41:00:27 – 00:41:27:29
Michael LeFebvre
Heyman hates and wants to kill the Jews, and he prays upon the king’s greed again, spoofing the buffoonery of King’s that they’re blind to the horror of what’s happening because Heyman comes along and splashes some silver coin and says, Hey, listen, I’ve got this plan and it’s going to make you rich. And suddenly the king’s on board. He is doing foolish things, unwise things, horrible things out of his greed.

00:41:28:10 – 00:41:42:09
Michael LeFebvre
How manipulate, how easily we manipulate rulers. When you give them women and money. You know, that’s kind of what the story is doing. And heyman’s the mastermind with this desire to destroy the Jews. But it never tells us why.

00:41:42:21 – 00:42:00:28
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, it sounds like the movie is filling in a lot of those details because, you know, maybe, you know, in the ancient times it was okay to not know some of those things leave it vague. But these days we really want to know all those details. And in those kind of filling in some of those plot points. That’s right.

00:42:00:28 – 00:42:23:21
Dan LeFebvre
Those holes making that up in the movie. King Xerxes asks Heyman for assistance in how to honor someone who has been of assistance to him, and that includes saving his life. Heyman seems to think of that it’s him that the king is wanting to honor. You know, he’s talking about and he gives us long list of things that he should do.

00:42:23:24 – 00:42:50:08
Dan LeFebvre
I wear a robe, a horse, a royal crest parading through the streets with the noblest of princes, a proclamation of thus shall it be done to the man in whom the king delights to honor. And of course, Heyman is giving all these recommendations, just thinking he the king’s going to do this to me. But he’s not. I he hates this when he finds out that the man the king’s going to do this to was not Heyman but Mordecai.

00:42:50:10 – 00:42:51:14
Dan LeFebvre
It didn’t happen.

00:42:51:28 – 00:43:16:22
Michael LeFebvre
That story is the hinge point in the book. Tavis Literary structure is it tells a story built around ten feasts and there are five piece at the beginning, and then they’re five feet at the end. And in the center there’s a fast where Esther asks all the Jews to fast. And this story takes place at that center point where Esther hosts those feasts.

00:43:16:22 – 00:43:35:21
Michael LeFebvre
And there, you know, Esther seasonal as kind of this this whole structure to the book that centers on this night. And the fast leads up to it and then the feast that is true prepares out of it. And this story you’ve just referenced that night and the turning point. And it’s one of the most hilarious, riotous parts of the whole book.

00:43:35:21 – 00:43:58:00
Michael LeFebvre
I mean, it’s Shakespearean in its comedy of errors, if you could just appreciate it. I mean, here you have on the same night after Esther goes into the king, he extends the scepter and she says, My request is that you and Heyman would join me for a banquet. And they have this banquet. And then gestures like My request is that you come for another banquet.

00:43:59:09 – 00:44:25:05
Michael LeFebvre
And so heyman’s getting really excited and the king is really confused. And that night, Heyman is boasting in his excitement, I’m being hosted at these bankers, the King and the Queen. But Mordecai will buy power to me. He’s he’s my one irritant in this moment of my joy. And so his wife suggests him. Well, then crush Mordecai. Let’s kill him.

00:44:25:05 – 00:44:45:00
Michael LeFebvre
Go into the king and ask for his execution so you can go to the next banquet. Happy that very same night The king can’t sleep. He is. His conscience is bothered. Something isn’t right. There’s something that’s been left undone. That’s why he calls for the Chronicles to be read for him. What is it that I’m supposed to do that I haven’t done?

00:44:45:00 – 00:45:06:05
Michael LeFebvre
That’s not been taken care of? And they find, Ah, Mordecai saved your life and he’s never been honored. And so he. So the same night Heyman is plotting out of his hatred for Mordecai and the King is full of gratitude for Mordecai. And they both converge on the Royal court the next morning to decide what to do with Mordecai.

00:45:06:16 – 00:45:44:02
Michael LeFebvre
And so the King asks Heyman, What should I do with someone who I really want to highly honor? Heyman thinks, Oh, that’s. And so it’s the most hilarious turn of events that he gives the idea for. He wants to be honored and then he has to turn around and do that to Mordecai instead of having him killed. It’s a comedy of errors, just like Shakespeare would do, and forms to the crux of the book, how did it all and four fold literally in history, as is the way with satire, you’ve got to have real events.

00:45:44:02 – 00:46:05:03
Michael LeFebvre
You’re working with. I mean, satire could be totally fiction while you’re doing historical satire. You’ve got to have real events you’re working with, but you highlight and you bring things out in order to emphasize the comedy that really is present in life. A good comedian brings out the comedy that’s really there. But by the way, you tell the story to really heighten it.

00:46:05:10 – 00:46:25:24
Michael LeFebvre
And this this book did a masterful job of of heightening the the irony of this hilarity of of of power. And what a how ridiculous it is and the way it shows in the book’s view of the hand of Providence, the hand of heavens justice, bringing forth justice and undermining the stupidity of man.

00:46:26:17 – 00:46:44:21
Dan LeFebvre
So it sounds like to make sure I’m understanding that you were saying that this that night for the king was when he had the Chronicles read. But then the movie was kind of using that point for earlier in the timeline of the movie. So is that the same the same event that you’re talking about there? The Chronicles being read?

00:46:45:00 – 00:47:08:22
Michael LeFebvre
So the movie suggests that the Chronicles are read to him every night. Okay. Including that night. That’s a misunderstanding because, again, as the movie state, the movie says and the first time it happens that they read the Chronicles to help them go to sleep. Okay. That’s not what it’s for in the ancient world. Again, this is this is something we don’t understand in our own culture, our own time.

00:47:09:08 – 00:47:42:04
Michael LeFebvre
But in the ancient world, the thinking was that a king is the embodiment of the nation. The king is a bridge between the people and they’re their deities. And so he has to live on this plane where he has oversight of the entire kingdom and understands everything that’s happening. But he also lives in communion with the gods in such a way that his own conscience is sort of a meeting point of the state of the kingdom and the desires of the gods.

00:47:42:04 – 00:48:03:18
Michael LeFebvre
And so when a king can’t sleep at night, his conscience is bothering him. It means something not just personal, but national. Something is not right. The gods are not pleased. There’s something I have to fix in order to restore balance to the kingdom, not just to get to sleep at night. So he falls for the chronicles. Let’s look through the Chronicles.

00:48:03:24 – 00:48:19:06
Michael LeFebvre
What have we done recently that we have not properly executed justice to. To, to to satisfy high heaven, as it were. And that’s kind of the context in which the chronicles will be brought and read to him on that particular night.

00:48:19:21 – 00:48:42:29
Dan LeFebvre
That that’s that’s a fascinating I wouldn’t have thought of that is almost a it sounds almost like an ancient medicinal aspect of, you know, some sort of that’s a kind of, oh, I can’t sleep, let’s find something. And to of course, that I mean, that’s a little too, you know, modern thinking in that way. But let’s find something to fix so that we can rest better at night.

00:48:42:29 – 00:48:45:07
Dan LeFebvre
You know, if you’re having a tough night sleeping.

00:48:46:07 – 00:49:07:27
Michael LeFebvre
And this is a prime example of it, take a lot to bring an audience back into history to understand what’s really happening in that story. Because this whole idea of kings and their kind of divine intuition, that’s something that, you know, we just we don’t have a category for.

00:49:07:27 – 00:49:22:16
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, yeah. In my mind, the closest thing I can think of when I’m thinking if I’m having a hard time sleeping, you know, there’s just something this kind of my mind is racing. It does help to write it down or, you know, to get it out of my mind so that then I can I can be at peace and get some sleep.

00:49:22:16 – 00:49:27:09
Dan LeFebvre
And so it sounds like a completely different purpose, you know, But it’s a concept.

00:49:27:24 – 00:50:04:25
Michael LeFebvre
And you’ve just illustrated beautifully the challenge of of retelling a story as we read the story and say, okay, they read the Chronicles to him at night, Why would I do that? Yeah, here’s why I would do that. And so I read that into the story. And that’s that’s part of the trick of, of a good historian and a historical retelling is to bring out the symbols of the text with their own cultural meaning rather than just what they would mean to us if we were to do that.

00:50:05:12 – 00:50:30:27
Dan LeFebvre
We go back to the movie. Is Timeline Xerxes about to leave for the military campaign in Greece that they had referenced earlier? That leaves him in as regent and there’s no time left. Heyman is going to enact the edict will annihilate the Jews. So Esther risks her own life by breaking protocol and going before the king without being summoned.

00:50:30:27 – 00:50:57:01
Dan LeFebvre
She runs through the rain, shows up in the hall of the king, drenched to beg for the lives of the jewels, a deuce I should say. And at least according to the movie, it works. Xerxes lowers his scepter. It’s an indication to spare Esther’s life for breaking protocol. Then later, Esther is in the room with Xerxes and Heyman, and she tells the king of her people and she begs for their lives.

00:50:57:01 – 00:51:08:09
Dan LeFebvre
And that’s when she reveals she is Hadassah, the daughter of the tribe of Benjamin. How accurate was the movie’s depiction of Esther’s plea before Xerxes?

00:51:09:07 – 00:51:36:25
Michael LeFebvre
The ultimate outcome was correct. And obviously, again, they’re working with the same basic elements. But it’s it’s I, I would love to sometimes sit down with a a writer just to better understand how they turn a book into a script. Because I know it’s telling a movie on screen is very different than in a book, and there’s got to be a lot of changes that are made.

00:51:37:08 – 00:51:53:28
Michael LeFebvre
And I don’t know which ones have to be made and which was done, but this is obviously a place where they’ve done a lot to bring out the drama on screen that they felt accurately they felt accurately portrays the drama of the book. But it takes all liberties with the book to do it. There was no rain that night.

00:51:54:04 – 00:52:25:21
Michael LeFebvre
The book didn’t describe any rain. She came there full royal regalia. There was no war looming and you know, there weren’t you know, he wasn’t about to leave and go to war. Heyman was not about to take over as regent. He was just vizier vice, the prime minister of the king. She just wanted to stop this edict from going into effect to destroy her people and courageously decided, Here’s the moment where I am going to reveal my identity and plea on behalf of my people for the king.

00:52:26:03 – 00:52:53:21
Michael LeFebvre
And so she took that courageous step which which really in the poetry of the book is an echo of Vashti in reverse. Vashti refused to come when summoned by the king and was banished for it. Esther is coming on, summoned to the king. Hmm. Well, she died. It’s really I mean, the story of those two women in Echo in the book is really quite, quite powerful.

00:52:54:00 – 00:53:15:13
Michael LeFebvre
And so she went and he extended the scepter. Now that that’s a powerful act in itself. You know, even in our day when a head of state meets with someone, a foreign dignitary, they don’t just meet without things being worked out ahead of time. You know, we know what they’re coming for. We know what the request is. We know what we can offer.

00:53:15:22 – 00:53:46:17
Michael LeFebvre
There’s kind of all this planning goes ahead of time, and then they meet to kind of seal the deal. Well, the king hears requests and to come in on summoned with a request is a great affront to the king. It potentially an embarrassment and it’s disrespectful. But by extending the scepter, he’s saying, I accept it to you. But by doing so, the implication is that he is going to accept your request as well.

00:53:47:03 – 00:54:06:27
Michael LeFebvre
And he even says to her, Tell me what you want up to half the kingdom and I will do it for you. I mean, that’s that’s why it’s so risky for him and so risky for her. Therefore, will he extend the scepter? Because by doing so, he is extending favor to this person who’s coming unbidden and their request.

00:54:07:20 – 00:54:29:27
Michael LeFebvre
So there’s reason for him to say, I don’t know what in the world this woman is here for, and I’m not just going to write her a blank check, you know? Sorry, woman, I will find another queen. But. However it unfolded, the book kind of just leads us to recognize this is the providence of God working out heaven’s justice in the midst even through the hands of buffoons like this.

00:54:29:27 – 00:54:56:11
Michael LeFebvre
KING He does extend his scepter and offers to hear out and to grant her request. And she in a way that just builds up the drama and prepares him for the significance of the request. That’s part of the reason her preparing for the significance of the request says, My request is that you come to a banquet where I’ll tell you my request, and then at that banquet again, there are two banquets.

00:54:56:11 – 00:55:18:11
Michael LeFebvre
The movie just shortened it all to one. My request is you come to another banquet tomorrow night, and then at that banquet is where she reveals my request is for my life and the life of my people. And by that point, the king’s question in the book is Who has threatened your life? And she says this wicked hymn.

00:55:18:15 – 00:55:43:06
Michael LeFebvre
Wow. It’s a powerful moment in the book. I think the movie I’m sorry, it just makes a mass of it by suggesting that the King doubts Aster at that moment that he goes out. You know, there is this thing with the the necklace and they didn’t see the stars. And so it was sort of doubting her identity and this Jewish concern.

00:55:43:06 – 00:56:09:18
Michael LeFebvre
And Heyman is choking her in the movie because he seems victorious. The book totally different. The book describes Heyman as cowering in fear and the king rising in rage at this moment when Aster has identified what’s been done. Because remember the way the story is told, the book Heyman plots are death but distracts the king with all these £10,000 of silver.

00:56:09:28 – 00:56:39:18
Michael LeFebvre
You know, and Hadassah Aster is the one who exposes to the king the true horror of what he has done and gets him to see the horror of it so that he is in rage. And the way the book it Heyman falls on on the couch, the seat where Esther is seated pleading for his life. And that’s the king accuses him of even assaulting the queen.

00:56:39:27 – 00:57:00:16
Michael LeFebvre
And they they put a bag over his head and take him out to kill him and put him up on the same post that he had built for Mordechai. Again, the poetic justice here by Yeah, so outcome is the same, but the process is a little bit different in the book. Yeah. Than the way the movie unfolds. And I think they lost a real great potential for drama in the way they changed it.

00:57:00:23 – 00:57:28:08
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. Yeah. You mentioned that you’re grabbing, There are some mentions that sound like it’s so like they’re pulling little pieces there, you know, the assault, the I think they did mention the the gallows where Heyman was making those to hang Mordecai And then you Xerxes orders Heyman to be hung on them instead what happened So kind of at the end of the story in the movie that all happens and then that the Jews are saved and Mordechai is appointed a prince.

00:57:28:08 – 00:57:48:14
Dan LeFebvre
Heyman is hung on on the gallows, as you mentioned, Esther, kind of you get the idea that Xerxes defends Esther. And of course, in the movie, you know, they imply there’s this great, you know, love and all that there. How well did the movie do showing kind of the end of Esther story and how it wrapped up at the end.

00:57:49:21 – 00:58:16:06
Michael LeFebvre
So one other just little historical nuance that I’ll just because you mentioned the gallows there, the movie does talk about the gallows. That’s a common understanding of what Heyman was building, but hanging by the neck and gallows are a European invention many centuries later. That’s not something that was done in the ancient world. Rather, what the what what Heyman was wanting to do.

00:58:16:11 – 00:58:43:06
Michael LeFebvre
He built a 50 cubit tall post is really what the text says a post to hang him on. So he sometimes interpreted I mean almost be like a gallows. But what it means is they would execute Mordecai and then impale his corpse on this post for everyone to see in order to demonstrate. This is what happens when you cross me and to shame that criminal.

00:58:43:06 – 00:59:11:25
Michael LeFebvre
That’s being impaled like that. So that’s really what’s being described. And so Heyman is really getting poetic justice when he ends up being the one executed and impaled on the very post that he was seeking to have Mordechai impaled upon. That’s just a little, little, little historical tidbit there in the way the movie portrays it. But but, you know, the the final comedy of the twist is is portrayed rightly in the movie.

00:59:12:06 – 00:59:52:09
Michael LeFebvre
Mordechai is now the takes Hayman’s seat also takes Heyman’s house while Heyman gets Mordechai his post and then Mordechai with Esther’s ratification sends out needing to pronounce this festival of Purim which is just sort of mentioned in the movie. But that’s actually the whole purpose of the book. The whole purpose of the book is it’s building up to this festival of Purim, which is an annual celebration of Heaven’s justice, unseating buffoonery, wealth and lust driven human oppressors.

00:59:52:09 – 01:00:13:03
Michael LeFebvre
I mean, that’s the whole point of this book, is to build up to that festival to every year, celebrate and remember this this book that gives us hope in a time of suffering and oppression. So the movie brings out those details, but it always brings about a sort of, oh, just wrap up the story rather than realizing this is kind of the climax.

01:00:13:03 – 01:00:14:29
Michael LeFebvre
This is kind of what the story is all about.

01:00:15:06 – 01:00:15:18
Dan LeFebvre
The story.

01:00:15:18 – 01:00:15:27
Michael LeFebvre
Here.

01:00:16:29 – 01:00:17:24
Dan LeFebvre
Not just little dots.

01:00:18:23 – 01:00:30:03
Michael LeFebvre
Because they turned it into a romance and they missed the real beauty. But this is a book to satire, human oppression, and they give us hope and heaven’s justice in the midst of our sorrows.

01:00:30:04 – 01:00:42:27
Dan LeFebvre
Wow. I mean, it sounds like the movie messed up the storyline a lot. But overall, how do you think the movie did kind of capturing the essence of that time period with the the look, the sights, the sounds, that that sort of thing?

01:00:43:27 – 01:01:11:17
Michael LeFebvre
Of course, like we said several times, bringing the audience into history is very difficult. But I don’t think that was really what they were trying to do. I think as a movie, as as a historical piece, they didn’t do well at all in portraying ancient history. I think I’ve established that already. But as a movie, I thought artistically they did the way they used drapes and kind of how these drapes everywhere.

01:01:11:17 – 01:01:40:23
Michael LeFebvre
I thought it it had you know, it created a nice effect, a feel of sort of what we imagine as kind of, you know, the ancient near East and Persian beauty and so forth. So as an impressive piece of art that is impressionistic piece of arc, I think they did well at portraying that feeling. But yeah, but it’s definitely not capturing the history itself.

01:01:40:23 – 01:01:52:09
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, Yeah. Speaking of history, if there’s was there something from mystery story in history that you really wish had been in the movie that they didn’t even touch on?

01:01:52:09 – 01:02:16:15
Michael LeFebvre
Well, they did touch on in the beginning of the movie. Hadassah is kind of hanging on Mordechai like a little girl on her dad saying, you know, can I please go to Jerusalem to see the temple? And all. That was a nice allusion to the fact that this is happening after a remnant of the Jews had left Persia to go back and rebuild the temple.

01:02:17:01 – 01:02:49:12
Michael LeFebvre
It would be interesting if the the book instead of the a malachite backdrop that it starts with, which is not, you know, really relevant to the the story. If they had instead opened with maybe the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple a couple of generations before, and then the Persian rise to power, conquering Babylon and Persia, sending back a remnant to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple.

01:02:49:12 – 01:03:09:27
Michael LeFebvre
But these dispersed Jews that are still living throughout the Persian Empire, living in places where they don’t have a temple, don’t have synagogues or anything like that, because that that really is, again, talk about the artistry of the book. The Book of Esther is one of the most unique books in the whole book. It is the most unique book.

01:03:09:27 – 01:03:30:00
Michael LeFebvre
It is unique in the whole Bible. It is unusual in this respect. It is the only book, an entire Bible that never mentions the name of God wants it, never even mentions God. But that’s part of the artistry of the book, because it’s written for people who are living in a society where there is no temple, unlike back in Jerusalem, there is no synagogue.

01:03:30:07 – 01:03:55:23
Michael LeFebvre
We are living on the margins, oppressed, hated is God even here. And the book is very artistic, only sort of giving you the experience of being in a place where God is not heard, God is not mentioned, God is not known. And yet his justice, His redemption, his deliverance is beautifully, powerfully experienced, even overthrowing someone as powerful as Xerxes.

01:03:56:03 – 01:04:12:02
Michael LeFebvre
So would I think it would have helped the story if, in terms of history, it had opened up with some reference to the Babylonian conquest and the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem, but then brought us back to those still living under Persian oppression in a place far from the temple.

01:04:12:24 – 01:04:29:22
Dan LeFebvre
It’s interesting you mention that because the movie kind of implies it’s it’s talking about the survival of all of the Jews. And it doesn’t give you a lot of run a lot of context around that. But it gives at least when I was watching the movie a kind of give you the impression that all the Jews were in Persia at that time.

01:04:29:22 – 01:04:34:07
Dan LeFebvre
But it sounds like that’s not necessarily the case, right?

01:04:34:07 – 01:05:05:05
Michael LeFebvre
Well, all the Jews were under Persian Dominion because Jerusalem at that time was on was a Persian okay province, if you will. It talked with 127 provinces. That’s sort of just a big number to give the idea of the vast rain from Ethiopia to India, you know, over the stretches of the known world. And yet again, as part of the artistry of the book, is talking in sweeping terms and and writers going to all corners of the empire to deliver these edicts to destroy the Jews.

01:05:05:14 – 01:05:18:09
Michael LeFebvre
You know, whether every single Jew in every corner of the empire, you know, is going to actually be annihilated. So the point of the story is to communicate the severity of it by giving that sentiment.

01:05:18:22 – 01:05:25:21
Dan LeFebvre
You mentioned the necklace that Esther has. You see the when light shines on it, the star of David reflects out.

01:05:25:26 – 01:05:26:06
Michael LeFebvre
Yes.

01:05:26:14 – 01:05:32:13
Dan LeFebvre
Is there any truth to that? Was that a thing? Does or do we know anything about that? That specific necklace?

01:05:32:13 – 01:05:59:05
Michael LeFebvre
I have never heard of anything like that. I think it’s an imaginative. Yeah, I think I think the movie is taking and giving Heyman the swastika and giving Esther the star of David as kind of to help us connect with those in our modern sentiments. I mean, the Star of David, it’s called The Star of David, but I think it’s a fairly recent invention.

01:05:59:05 – 01:06:30:13
Michael LeFebvre
I mean, by by recent centuries. I’m an ancient Greece historian. So recent to me as several things. You know, it’s a fairly recent invention, meaning I don’t it’s not from biblical times. It’s not something that David himself had on his crest or anything. So it’s not something that Aster would have had or known of. But the movie is, you know, using this necklace to portray one symbol and using the pendant of Heyman to portray another, I think to help a modern audience identify.

01:06:30:13 – 01:06:30:27
Michael LeFebvre
Yeah, again.

01:06:30:27 – 01:06:54:06
Dan LeFebvre
Another good versus evil, making it easier. Yeah. Yeah. I have to ask with Xerxes, right. So when I think of Xerxes and they kind of set this, you know, he’s, he’s having a season of fasting and we talked about this earlier, it’s kind of the stalling, the decision to march on Greece. And when I think I think of that, I just think of the story of the 300 Spartans.

01:06:54:11 – 01:06:58:12
Dan LeFebvre
Is there is there any tie in to that at all, I mean, in this sort of time period?

01:06:59:03 – 01:07:22:19
Michael LeFebvre
So if indeed Ahasuerus is Xerxes, which we’re pretty confident that’s the king that is intended by the story, that it is the same, the same Persian king. And that’s where the authors of the movie are filling in cracks with other historical information that’s not relevant to the book. But they are drawing on real dots and are just inventing the way they all connect.

01:07:23:13 – 01:07:53:09
Michael LeFebvre
Xerxes father, Darius, failed to conquer. Greece was defeated at the famous battle of Marathon and was later killed. Xerxes himself then tried again to conquer the Greeks with the battle of Thermopylae and the famous 300 and all of that. And I think I think he did do that pretty early after is ascension to the throne, not as early as the third year, but maybe within the first decade.

01:07:53:29 – 01:08:13:28
Michael LeFebvre
I don’t know the exact timing of it. So, you know, so the the the writers of the movie are are they know their historical timelines and they’re connecting these dots. But by doing so, they’re creating a backstory that really is not part of the book of Esther and I think distracts from what the book of Esther is actually trying to get at.

01:08:14:09 – 01:08:18:04
Michael LeFebvre
But yeah, it is the same Xerxes from that movie or that story in.

01:08:18:04 – 01:08:19:06
Dan LeFebvre
Other ways is that.

01:08:19:06 – 01:08:20:21
Michael LeFebvre
Movie’s accurate. That’s a whole another one.

01:08:21:00 – 01:08:22:15
Dan LeFebvre
I do have an episode on there. That is another one.

01:08:23:22 – 01:08:24:01
Michael LeFebvre
Yeah.

01:08:24:11 – 01:08:43:24
Dan LeFebvre
Thank you so much for coming on to chat about one night with the King. Before I let you, I wanted to ask about your article for the Center for Hebraic Thought at King’s College called the story of Esther as redemptive humor in the Bible. Can you share a brief overview of that article for someone who wants to learn more about Esther story as well as where they can find all your work?

01:08:44:20 – 01:09:05:15
Michael LeFebvre
Yeah, sure. And thanks for having me. It’s really fun to do this. I’ve Been looking forward to doing this with my brother. What a what a treat. It’s great. I’ve been a huge fan of your your podcast for a long time now, so it’s great to have our our interests and areas of of research overlap in this. This project is pretty great.

01:09:06:19 – 01:09:45:26
Michael LeFebvre
Yeah. So I’ve, I’ve taught on the book of Esther a lot but I’ve never written a book on Esther specifically. I’d think it’d be a fun one to do someday, but I haven’t, haven’t done that. But I did write an article that you mentioned for the Center of Hebraic thought and also recorded that as a podcast. So if people are interested, the article basically brings out the whole idea that this is ancient satire and helps to draw out and show you humor in the book and how this works to Minister Hope and Joy to an oppressed people who have no other hope, and to just laugh at the stupidity of human beings in power.

01:09:46:09 – 01:10:07:25
Michael LeFebvre
So that that’s what the article does. And I did record it as a podcast episode in my podcast called The Bible is Beautiful. I just think the Bible is full of all kinds of amazing literature like this that’s so fun to delve into and explore whether. You’re religious or not? It’s classic literature, extremely well written. That’s why it’s lasted so long.

01:10:07:25 – 01:10:24:23
Michael LeFebvre
And I think it’s so fun to explore this collection of texts and I did an episode on Esther were based on that article. So people who want to read can read on the Internet or they could listen to the podcast if they’d like to hear more about Esther from that perspective.

01:10:25:24 – 01:10:31:16
Dan LeFebvre
That’s that’s fine. I’ll make sure to include links to that in the show notes for this episode. Thank you for coming on, Mike. I really appreciate it.

01:10:32:12 – 01:10:43:24
Michael LeFebvre
Yeah, it’s been fun. Thanks a lot and take care.