10-14-2006, 01:50 PM
Sorry I missed this reply.
I don’t see much in Ester to change my opinion. The King simply issued new decrees that reversed early decisions, directly or formally invalidating the old decrees (that is stating the previous one was incorrect). Rather than rule of law I think we are mealy looking at a legal fiction designed to protect the concept of infallibility for a king and screen palace politics.
In particular Ester 8:7: All Xerxes says is he cannot revoke his old decree, he simply has Ester write a new decree that he will sign…
I don’t see that rivals the Athenian distinction between laws and decrees, nor any mechanism for appealing an illegal decree or legal loophole such as the one Xerxes uses for Ester, no court systems as it were.
Quote: There was a book, which is referred to several times (a/o in the biblical books of Ezra-Nehemia and Esther). The point of Esther is that Ahasverus is unable to revert an earlier decision.
I don’t see much in Ester to change my opinion. The King simply issued new decrees that reversed early decisions, directly or formally invalidating the old decrees (that is stating the previous one was incorrect). Rather than rule of law I think we are mealy looking at a legal fiction designed to protect the concept of infallibility for a king and screen palace politics.
In particular Ester 8:7: All Xerxes says is he cannot revoke his old decree, he simply has Ester write a new decree that he will sign…
I don’t see that rivals the Athenian distinction between laws and decrees, nor any mechanism for appealing an illegal decree or legal loophole such as the one Xerxes uses for Ester, no court systems as it were.
Paul Klos
\'One day when I fly with my hands -
up down the sky,
like a bird\'
\'One day when I fly with my hands -
up down the sky,
like a bird\'
