Chapter VIII: New German Theory of Purim

I have hitherto but incidentally mentioned Marduk and Humman as competitors with Tammuz and the king for the glory of receiving a vicarious whipping and hanging. They are brought into this honourable position by an entirely new Teutonic theory of Purim: _not_ Mr. Frazer's. It was lately an old Jewish Tammuz rite, or quite a new adaptation of the Sacæa. But 'it is possible,' says Professor Nöldeke, 'that we have here' (in Purim) 'to do with a feast whereby the Babylonians commemorated a victory gained by their gods over the gods of their neighbours, the Elamites, against whom they had so often waged war. The Jewish feast of Purim is an annual merrymaking of a wholly secular kind, and it is known that there were similar feasts among the Babylonians.' From the Babylonians, then, the Jews borrowed Purim, a feast commemorative of a victory of the gods of Babylon over the Elamites. But, if that feast was religious, the Jews turned it into 'an annual merrymaking of a totally secular kind.'[51]

Mr. Frazer, if I do not misunderstand him, does not accept the hypothesis of Nöldeke. He says, however, 'We can hardly deny the plausibility of the theory that Haman and Vashti on the one side, and Mordecai and Esther on the other, represent the antagonism between the gods of Elam and the gods of Babylon, and the final victory of the Babylonian deities in the very capital of their rivals.' But plausibility, we shall see, is remote from proof. And how can Mr. Frazer think this theory plausible if the Sacæa really is a King-Tammuz feast?

But, if Purim is now to be a rejoicing over a victory of the Babylonian gods (naturally endeared as these gods were to the Jews), why was the fast held before Purim? It was held, according to 'Jensen's solution' (which is 'the best'), 'for the supposed annual death of a hero of the type of Tammuz or Adonis, whose resurrection on the following day occasioned that outburst of joy and gladness which is characteristic of Purim.'[52] But, if 'the outburst of joy and gladness characteristic of Purim' is a jubilation over a victory of the Babylonian gods, on Nöldeke's theory, why is there a fast, 'the fast of Esther,' before Purim, which is a feast of the Tammuz type? To fast for the death of Tammuz is a comely thing, but why should Jews, of all people, fast before a feast commemorative of a victory of the Babylonian gods? And why should the Jews, of all people, scourge and hang, at the same time, the possible human representative of Marduk, the chief of the gods whose victory they for some reason are commemorating?[53]