Tanach Thoughts

I've been quite busy lately and still am. I've started a number of posts but haven't gotten around to finishing them. However, yesterday I realized something interesting while reading a book, and it's short, so I'm sharing it. So Purim has come and gone...several months ago. But when you think about it, maybe Purim should be year-round because the whole build up to the grand finale of Esther was years in the making. Anyway, Daryavesh, or Darius, the one under whom the Second Temple was completed, was, according to Jewish tradition, the son of Queen Esther and King Achashverosh (see for example Midrash Yalkut Shimoni on the Torah 536 ). However, this is never openly acknowledged in Tanach. There might be any number of reasons for this, including that we have misunderstood our sources and they are not referring to the same Daryavesh under whom the Temple was completed; that Daryavesh was so far gone from Judaism that there was no point; IT'S A THEOLOGICAL CONSPIRA...

  (Image from Shay Charka 's נגיד שבבא בתנ"ך (highly recommended)) Ask just about any bible academic, and they'll tell you that whoever authored Chronicles was basically writing pro-Davidic propaganda. Okay, pro-Davidic-- as opposed to what? Pro-Shaulian, of course. That's right, Am Yisrael's first official king (setting aside whatever halachic status Moshe may have held, and also, l'havdil, setting aside Avimelech, son of Gidon), King Shaul, while mentioned in Chronicles, doesn't get that much limelight, certainly nowhere close to that of David (David's kingdom covers almost all of Chronicles 1, and most of Chronicles 2 is dedicated to his descendants' stories). Bible critics are quick to notice this, and generally deduce that this means that the author of Chronicles was anti-Shaul and pro-Davidic, and did everything in his power to reduce Shaul's role in the history of Am Yisrael. Now me, I believe in our sages' tradition that Chronicles ...