"What is a holiday like #Purim doing on the #Jewish calendar? What is a #book like #Esther doing in the #Tanakh? Was the holiday really established the way that the book of Esther describes, following intrigue at the #Persian court and the last minute intervention of a Jewish queen that saved her people from massacre? (And let’s not forget the massacre of Persians that happens instead.)
The story itself belongs to a genre that stretches back to #Joseph’s time in #Egypt, that of the Jewish courtier ensconced in a foreign court, and it is a genre that continues today wherever a #Jew is portrayed as a fish out of water in the #Diaspora and ends up in a position of influence. Another early story of this type, #Daniel, has its protagonist trying to survive in the court of #Babylon, and some scholars have guessed (because we can only guess) that the story of Esther began circulating around the same time as Daniel, perhaps during the fourth century #BCE."
https://jewishchronicle.timesofisrael.com/the-origins-of-purim/