Additions to Esther
The Greek edition of Esther expands the Hebrew story with six additions: Mordecai's apocalyptic dream and its interpretation, the texts of the royal edicts, Esther's dramatic entrance before the king, and above all the prayers of Mordecai and Esther. Where the Hebrew book famously never names God, the additions make the hidden explicit, filling the story with petition, providence, and praise. Catholics and Orthodox receive these portions as deuterocanonical Scripture within Esther; Protestants set them apart as apocryphal, since they are absent from the Hebrew text. Read together, they show how Greek-speaking Jews prayed their way through Esther.
Unknown; Greek additions attributed in the colophon to Lysimachus of Jerusalem
Additions from the 2nd–1st century BC
Greek-speaking Jews of the diaspora, especially in Egypt
To retell Esther's deliverance with God's name, prayers, and providence made explicit for a Greek-speaking Jewish audience.