There's an old school Hebrew version of the book of Esther that goes clear back to the

Persian Empire.

But then there are later Greek editions that happened after Persia had met its match

at the hands of Alexander the Great, and that's what we've been talking about here for

the last couple of days.

So I'm just picking up right where we left off with that story from yesterday.

If this seems abrupt, make sure you go back and catch yesterday's episode, it'll make

more sense.

Alexandria is now the most Jewish city in the world.

But Alexander the Great's Greekification efforts have been really successful.

Everybody speaks Greek now.

And even though there are tons of Jews in Alexandria who have synagogues and they're still

deeply committed practitioners of Judaism, they're not very good at Hebrew.

Hebrew's kind of gone away.

Even back in Jerusalem, as we're getting into the 200s B.C., one of the other languages

that was prominent in Persia, Aramaic has really caught on.

And if somebody traveled to Jerusalem from Alexandria in the second century B.C., you'd

be more likely to hear Greek or Aramaic than you would Hebrew.

Hebrew still would have been used around the temple, but Greek would have been the trade

language of the day.

Aramaic would have been the local language.

Well, in Egypt, this is pretty much just Greek all the time.

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