3. Hitzig (Gtgch. ler.) obsen-es that PhuT in mod. Arabic= New Year (cf. pilrva=the first), and argues for a New Year's festival of Parthian origin which the Bk. of Esther (after B.C. 238) was designed to commend to the Jewish nation generally, itfl historical elements, such as they are, being derived from the early Arsacid, not the Achiemenid period.
4. A more remarkable theory is that which was originated by von Hammer in 1827 (iriVn. Jahrbuch Lit.), and elabo- rated and developed by Lagarde in his ' Purim,' Ein Beitrag zur (iexch. der Relifji&n 0880. according to which the feast ie a Judaic transformation ot the old Zoroastrian Farwanligin (Festival of the Dead), obser^'ed on the last ten days of the year, including five intercalary days. Lagarde (while also ascribing an influence to the juaycjov/* of Herod, iii. 79, and to a Fe»t deg Unbarti(]m) endeavours to make out a linguistic connexion between the Pers. name just mentioned and the various phases of the Greek name by which Purim is represented in the Soptuagint (viz. fpovfixi, ^ci/pi'x, cofOfAxia, f/toupxiei^, finding in these the elements of New-Pers. PCrdigdn, which he idcnl ities with the ^evfi^tyav, mentioned by the Byz. Menander as a I'ers. feast in the 6th cent., and inferring the original Gr. form to have been ^ptiixii = Heb. Purdaia («;Tn!E), while he explains aw»y the Heb. "US by supposing that the original reading (37) may have been, not Nin ■na, but r.iC-iS (phannanah)= Pers. firman (edict). Renan takesa similar view (Livre iv. Hist, du P. d'l8r.\ tracing the name to Pere. FourrH (.\ram. Pourdai, Heb. Phour- durt=PAtnirim), and supposes the festival to have acquired ite halo of Jewish romance in the time of the Maccabees. The ety- mological argument, however, is very precarious, popular usage in such a case being little inlluenced by corruptioiu of tex^
PUKBl
rUElTY
175
wid the varioM Or. readings being too easily accounted for by the trrors of Alexandrian copyisU to justilv us in using them to correct such a good Hcb. text, even i( tlie dcrivatiou from /•an«ir>/l-;,in were better^ sui.i>orted than it l» ((or oljjections Kc U^ilti V in the litv. dft^twJtt Juivrt, 1887, who denves the LXX forms from the Gr. ;«!./>« = 9i«in/). j -.k „
6 Another theory which has been recently advanced with no leuaoonfldence is that of iir..tz(J/u.ia(.*c/m/( Gai. v. n us. d. Jvd. XXXV. 10-12). He traces Furim to Heb. n-iiEO)firaA) = wine-press, Bupposing the (east to have been due to the adoption by the JewT in Palestine (in the rei-n of Ptolemy iv. Ph.lupator B.O. J->i--'lJi ihruuL-h the Ikllenizing influence o( Joseph the tribute- collector,— Jos. AM. xil. iv.) of the Or. fi'htival n,0.,5... = jur- opening, corresponding to the Vinalia of the Uomans, alleging In supiort of his theory the riotous mirth and the making of presents of wine which characterized that Bacchanalian seiison. The linguistic argument, liowevtr. is seen to be more apparent than rial when it is noticed that iriiu-preas suggests, not ej^ng (when the AnthesU-ria were held, of which the J'ldiuiyui (orincd part) butou/iimii, and that tlie J n(A<".<'.-rui lasted for Hirer days. Moreover, it is scarcely conceivable that such a Gr. institution could have gained in the course of a generation or two such a «rong hold on the affections of the Jews as to resist the anti- Hellenic reaction which set in tjnder the Maccabees within half a century" afterwards. , , . , ^,^
6. Still more recently Zimmem (ZATW, 1891) has derived the Feast of Puriin from the Bab. ZaymiilM (otherwise Akttu). an ancient New Year's festival, celebrated with great TOnip and mirth in the opening days of Nisan (cf. Est 37). This was remarkable chiefly for an aticmbln (Assyr. pufiru, easily passing into the meaning of feast, cf. wi.r and ama, connmim)of the gods which was held under the presidency of the Bab. tutelar deity ilarduk, itendach (cf. NordecaC). in a chamber forming part of s. larger room {Ubixtyina = room, of the puhni) in his tcraiile B-Sagila, (or the purpose of settUng the fates of the king and the whole nation for the coming year (cf. the (of of Lsl 37 9»») Thiscelebration represented a similar mjthical assembly of the gods, supposed to be held in a mysterious spot in the far East, ivhich, again, had iU prototype in a convi\nal assembly of the gods on the eve of the creation (see art Babvlosia, vol. l. E17"5, at which Marduk was appointed to overcome the rival power Tidtiiat. and carry out the work of creation. In this connexion Manluk is signilicantly called 'the arranger of the ptiAru of the gods.' In Tidmat Zimmem thinks we may And the original of Hainan (as in Marduk of Mordecai); and in the story of the Bk. of Esther he sees a Jewish transformation of the liab. legend (Bel and the Dragon), the change of d.ile from Nisan to Adar being due to the desire to keep it a month earlier than the solemn Passover.
Conliriiiation of this theorv in a modified form is offered by Jen^cn ( ir/A'J/ vi. 471!. 2u9il. ; see also his communication to '^ildeboer, quoted by the latter in his (Jomm. on 'Esther' in Marti's KuTlrr Udcomm. p. 173), who suggests the identification of Haman with an Elamite god Huinba-ba=//uwinam (cor- responding to the Bab. .Marduk), of Uaman's wife Zereeh with Hummams consort Kiriia, and of Vatldi with an Elamite divinity WaMi, while at the same time pointing out that Kslher -Bab. Iitar, and that Iladaxxa in Hab.^bridf. He also makes out /«((ir to be a cousin of Marduk, as Esther of Mordecii. With this mythology he connects the Bab. New Year's epic which celebrates, in twelve parts, the changing fortunes of Eabani (.Marduk), and he finds in the Bk. of Esther a combina- tion of these and other elements of a more popular character relating to the Babvlonian conquest of the Elamites, the whole being wrought up b'v Jewish fancy amid Pers. surroundings.