The Book of Hiding: Gender, Ethnicity, Annihilation and Esther (Biblical Limits)

167 Pages·1997·0.53 MB·English

by  Timothy K. Beal

THE BOOK OF HIDING
The Book of Hiding offers a fluent and erudite analysis of the
parallels between the Bible and contemporary discussions of gender,
ethnicity, and social ambiguity. Professor Beal focuses particularly
on the traditionally marginalized book of Esther, in order to examine
closely the categories of self and other in relation to religion, sexism,
nationalism and the ever-looming legacies and future possibilities
of annihilation. Drawing from contemporary writers such as Cixous,
Irigaray, and Levinas, Professor Beal challenges widely held
assumptions about the moral and life-affirming message of Scripture
and even about the presence of God in the book of Esther. The
Book of Hiding draws together a variety of different perspectives
and disciplines, creating a unique space for dialogue, raising new
questions, and reconsidering old assumptions.
Timothy K.Beal is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Eckerd
College, Florida. He is the chair of the Reading, Theory, and the
Bible Section of the Society of Biblical Literature. He is co-editor,
with David Gunn, of Reading Bibles, Writing Bodies: Identity and
The Book (Routledge 1997).
BIBLICAL LIMITS
We have to move beyond the outside-inside alternative; we have to
be at the frontiers. Criticism indeed consists of analyzing and
reflecting upon limits.
– Michel Foucault (“What is Enlightenment?”)
This series brings a variety of postmodern perspectives to the
understanding of biblical texts. It challenges the traditional field of
bibilical studies and invites new partners, including critics of
literature, gender and culture, to press the boundaries of a familiar—
and unfamiliar—Bible.
EDITORS
Danna Nolan Fewell
Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas
David M.Gunn
Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, Texas
Amy-Jill Levine
Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee
Gary A.Phillips
College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, Massachusetts
ALSO IN THIS SERIES
Jesus Framed
George Aichele
Reading Bibles, Writing Bodies
Identity and The Book
Edited by Timothy K.Beal and David M.Gunn
THE BOOK OF HIDING
Gender, Ethnicity, Annihilation,
and Esther
Timothy K.Beal
London and New York
First published 1997
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2002.
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
© 1997 Timothy K.Beal
Timothy K.Beal asserts the moral right to be identified
as the author of this book
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from
the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data
Beal, Timothy K. (Timothy Kandler)
The book of hiding: gender, ethnicity, annihilation,
and Esther/Timothy K.Beal.
(Biblical limits)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Bible, O.T.Esther-Social scientific criticism.
2. Group identity-Biblical teaching.
I. Title II. Series.
BS1375.2.B42 1997
222'.906–dc21 97–2288
ISBN 0-415-16779-5 (hbk)
ISBN 0-415-16780-9 (pbk)
ISBN 0-203-13105-3 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-17934-X (Glassbook Format)
To Sophie, Seth,
and Clover
A breeze brought him the smell of clover—the sweet-smelling world
beyond his fence. “Well,” he thought, “I’ve got a new friend, all
right. But what a gamble friendship is!”
E.B.White, Charlotte’s Web
“Beal’s book is a splendid exhibit of the new place we are in, in
Scripture interpretation.”
Walter Brueggemann, Columbia Theological Seminary
“This is an important book, not just for Esther studies but also for
feminist biblical criticism and for the newly emerging study of
ethnicity in the Bible. With a remarkable methodological sophistic-
ation Beal moves criticism of the book of Esther beyond the simplistic
debate concerning the value of Esther as a good or bad role model to
a consideration of the unstable and problematic ways in which gender
and ethnic identities are constructed and reconstructed, negotiated
and renegotiated in the book.”
Carol A.Newsom, Emory University
“Tim Beal’s sensitive interpretation of the enchanting yet disturbing
‘Book of Esther’ is a gift to students and teachers of Scripture. Though
the mystery of the ‘hiding’ remains intact, the characters emerge in a
new light, weaving a story that responds to our need for
enchantment.”
Elie Wiesel, Boston University

vi
CONTENTS

Preface ix
INTRODUCTION: Dislocating Beginnings 1
1 WRITING OUT, I 15
2 PALIMPSEST 29
3 THE BIBLE AS MORAL LITERATURE 40
4 WRITING OUT, II 50
5 FINDING ONESELF SIGNED UP 60
6 INSOMNIA AND A LOST DREAM OF WRITING 75
7 SUBVERSIVE EXCESSES 85
8 COMING OUT 96
IN CONCLUSION 107
Notes 125
Bibliography 141
Index 149

vii

PREFACE

Often, the landscapes of biblical literature appear initially to be
plain and simple. No shadows, no unfamiliar regions, no hidden
depths. But the closer you look, the more complex they become.
The book of Esther (in Jewish tradition, Megillah, “the scroll”) is
no exception. The entire text is only eight or nine pages long in
most English Bible translations. I could hardly summarize it in less.
(I recommend that anyone unfamiliar with the story take twenty
minutes to read it before beginning the present book.) On first
reading, it appears so simple, so straightforward. But attend to the
text more closely, and the landscape becomes increasingly complex
and difficult to map. New and haunting questions arise and old
answers suddenly need to be reconsidered.
I read the book of Esther as a literary farce that highlights
the impossibilities of locating and fixing the not-self, or other
(specifically the woman as other and the Jew as other) over
against “us.” In theater and literature studies, a farce is a
performance that plays on broad improbabilities and
exaggerations; in the kitchen, a farce is a seasoned stuffing.
The two fields of meaning are not as far apart as they might
seem. Farcir means “to stuff,” and a literary or theatrical farce
is “stuffed” with improbabilities, accidents, and exaggerations.
On my reading of the book of Esther, it is the aggregation of
the many identity convergences, shifting alignments,
ambivalences, and marginal locations in the story that leads,
ultimately, to the profound disaggregations of other subjects
and the order of relations of “us” and “them” upon which they
rely. The story of Esther is, in this sense, farcical. It is stuffed
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