Persian Cosmology and the Archetype of Amalek: On the Theological Polemic in the Book of Esther: Dismantling Achaemenid Dualism

Abstract

The article proposes a new interpretation of Megillat Esther as a philosophical text conducting systematic polemic against the Achaemenid dualistic worldview. Megillat Esther is the only text of the Tanakh in which the name of God is not mentioned even once — a fact traditionally explained by the concept of hester pānīm (hiding of the face). The present study proposes an additional dimension: the absence of God’s name is a theologically precise gesture — there is no adversary beside whom God needs to be named. The central thesis is that the archetype of Amalek, embodied in the figure of Haman the Agagite, functions in the text as a radical negation of dualistic cosmology. The Achaemenid Empire of the 6th–5th centuries BCE constituted a cosmological system based on the arta/drauga (order/lie) opposition, the sacralization of royal power through xvarenah, and astral fatalism inherited from Babylonian tradition. The Megillah works from within this system: the precise reproduction of Persian onomastics, administrative terminology, and toponymy creates an authentic background against which an immanent critique unfolds. The chiastic structure of the text realizes a systematic inversion of each element of the Persian matrix. At the ontological level, Haman functions not as a ‘dark force’ equal to the ‘light,’ but as privatio boni — absence simulating presence. Methodologically, the article stands at the intersection of Iranian studies, biblical studies, and Jewish philosophy of evil.