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I've been trying to figure out if Esther was married to the same Xerxes that was defeated by the Spartan at Thermopylae.  There seems to be some debate about the topic and as such I've pretty much hit a dead end.

It seems that there may have been 2 Xerxes or at least a possible differentiation between Xerxes and Artaxerxes.

So I thought I'd see what others' opinions were.

Quote from: The Society on Thu May 23, 2013 - 18:01:28
I've been trying to figure out if Esther was married to the same Xerxes that was defeated by the Spartan at Thermopylae.  There seems to be some debate about the topic and as such I've pretty much hit a dead end.

It seems that there may have been 2 Xerxes or at least a possible differentiation between Xerxes and Artaxerxes.

So I thought I'd see what others' opinions were.

The bible says the king who married Esther was Ahasuerus.  This is sometimes mistakenly thought to be  Xerxes.  The book of Esther says 1 ¶  And the king Ahasuerus laid a tribute upon the land, and upon the isles of the sea.  However Xerxes did not lay tribute on the Isles, his father, Darius did.  Xerxes lost those isles, so Ahasuerus could be none other than Darius.  Xerxes and Artaxerxes were titles that most Persian kings had, a bit like Pharaoh for the Egyptians

According to Daniel, Ahasuerus was the father of Darius, so the two cannot be the same.

OK but I've also heard that the Darius from Daniel may not be the same as Darius the Great.

I find it interesting that this confuses me so much.  I haven't had much trouble at all researching the Pharaohs of Moses and Jacob.

One of the problems is, that the the KJV was translated from the latin vulgate (not entirely, but mainly), which was translated from the hebrew texts.  So we have English, Latin and Hebrew versions of the name.  Another problem is that contemporary sources are in persian and greek...with the names of the kings in each of the native tounges.  So we have would could be three names for the same man.

For example, John can be Juan can be Ivan can be Evan...all four are the same name in different languages. 

The key is to look for clues in the text itself.

There's several problems going on here...

1) Half the Persian kings are named Darius.
2) There were 2 coup d'etats during the Persian empire, at least one of them occuring near/in the timeframe of the writing of Daniel
3) Co-regency.  The Persian empire was divided into satrapies, and often the king of the empire was a different person that the local king of the satrapy.  It was customary to make the crown prince the local king, while his father held the title "king of kings."  (Yes, that is where that phrase first comes from.)

Jarrod

Quote from: The Society on Thu May 23, 2013 - 18:01:28
I've been trying to figure out if Esther was married to the same Xerxes that was defeated by the Spartan at Thermopylae.  There seems to be some debate about the topic and as such I've pretty much hit a dead end.

It seems that there may have been 2 Xerxes or at least a possible differentiation between Xerxes and Artaxerxes.

So I thought I'd see what others' opinions were.

"Ahasuerus" is the Hebraized form of Xerxes Something else to keep in mind is that Esther may have been known to secular history under another name. It happens.

Quote from: Wycliffes_Shillelagh on Wed Dec 04, 2013 - 17:34:14
There's several problems going on here...

1) Half the Persian kings are named Darius.
2) There were 2 coup d'etats during the Persian empire, at least one of them occuring near/in the timeframe of the writing of Daniel
3) Co-regency.  The Persian empire was divided into satrapies, and often the king of the empire was a different person that the local king of the satrapy.  It was customary to make the crown prince the local king, while his father held the title "king of kings."  (Yes, that is where that phrase first comes from.)

Jarrod

Another question of note: who was Gobryas? Is he the same as Gaburu? Is it another name for Darius? Cyrus?

I do not know off hand.  Wikipedia says there are 2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gobryas

I think the 2nd is the one you're interested in, as Esther would be well after the time of Cyrus the Great.  It appears he was an important figure in the 2nd coup d'etat during that time period - a member of either the king's guard, or something else similar to the Roman praetorian.

Also, Esther is not originally a Hebrew name, it is Babylonian in origin.  Good chance her name was changed to Esther.

Jarrod

I've never read the book of Esther to make any determination.
I just wanted to say this. Maybe  Xerxes had a split personality and people could never figure out which
Xerxes he was. 

I'm sorry for the humor for I know history is a more serious topic. But I wanted to be able to say something.