Biblical Acrostics

[Evacuated]

19 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

The entire book of Esther, for example, which was written later than the Babylonian Captivity, does not contain the name YHWH at all.

Do you discount the apparent acrostics noted at, for example, Esther 1:20; 5:4, 13; and 7:7?

Is there an LXX awareness of these?

[Micah Ong]

2 minutes ago, Eoin Joyce said:

Do you discount the apparent acrostics noted at, for example, Esther 1:20; 5:4, 13; and 7:7?

Well I do know that occults like to use acrostics in text. 

 

[JW Insider]

1 hour ago, Eoin Joyce said:

Do you discount the apparent acrostics noted at, for example, Esther 1:20; 5:4, 13; and 7:7?

Is there an LXX awareness of these?

They are apparently random. Hebrews used alphabetic acrostics in psalms and poetry because it provided a mnemonic. Imagine trying to remember a Psalm of 172 verses like Psalms 119 if it didn't make use of an alphabetic memory aid. But there is no evidence that the Hebrew readers who translated the Hebrew to Greek for the LXX even noticed them in Esther. Also, these are some of the most common letters in Hebrew, and they are at apparently random, non-poetic places in the book. This is also true of where they show up in at least 50 or 60 other places in the Bible but never got noticed - because those books didn't go through a canonization debate and already used God's name, sometimes right next to the so-called acrostic. First Chronicles has more than a dozen of them, in obviously random places. And, just like in the book of Esther, sometimes, to make them work, you have to use the beginning letters of four consecutive words for some, and the final letters for some, and you have to read forward on some and read backwards on some.

This gives evidence that it was just wishful thinking that forced people to look even harder at the book to try to find the divine name in it, or perhaps that the text was purposely manipulated to give Esther an edge in canonization. (But the fact that no one just went ahead and added YHWH to the text, makes Micah's point even less relevant.)

Laurence A. Turner wrote an essay for a publication in a scholarly journal in 2013 that kind of sums up the idea in the title: "Desperately Seeking Yhwh, Finding God in Esther's 'Acrostics.'" https://www.academia.edu/6370833/Desperately_Seeking_YHWH_Finding_God_in_Esthers_Acrostics_

In that work, it is mentioned that you can even find Satan in the book of Esther at least twice by using the same methods. (Of course, a real numerologist would simply say that this means that God is twice as powerful as Satan, and some would undoubtedly nod their heads without questioning whether God is actually 7 or 10 or 100,000 times more powerful.)

Edited to add: Just noticed a footnote in the work quoted by Turner. Previously I had seen someone who found about 60 instances. Turner claims to have found over 100. My guess is that there are probably even a few more. Here's his footnote:

Quote

Not including those in Esther, there are 102 examples: initial consonants read left to right (60) and right to left (27); final consonants read left to right (4) and right to left (11)

 

[JW Insider]

1 hour ago, Eoin Joyce said:

Do you discount the apparent acrostics noted at, for example, Esther 1:20; 5:4, 13; and 7:7?

I should add that I have no idea whether these so-called acrostics are purposeful or not, or if they really are random or if they were put there on purpose either in the original text or a later text. I might find them problematic if we put a lot of emphasis on them, because then it would seem that we weren't using the same measure of wisdom and discretion in comparing 100 other places if these were really so special. Also, Esther seems to have one of each type. If this is something very significant, then the odds are good that these were designed on purpose. But trying to read into the differences of each type - backwards, forwards, end letters, beginning letters, and one "I am" for good measure has resulted in the same type of thinking that goes into reading tea leaves, coffee grounds, bird entrails, and zig-zagging vents and gutters in the great pyramid. Little find-a-word puzzles seem NOT to be a true reflection of the all-powerful Almighty God, Jehovah. I wouldn't put it past a later copyist, though.