For class we were tasked with redesigning a short book of the Bible. One of our options was Esther, and even though I wasn’t particularly a fan of that story, I knew there was a lot of interesting history there. I decided to not only redesign the book like the class required, but I also wanted to make it a historical and biblical commentary. My dad and I worked together to sift through the historical references–Dad came up with a timeline based off of James Ussher’s Annals of History while I read Josephus.
Below is the cover jacket design and some of the spreads in the book. I’ve also included the introduction to read below the designs, in case you want to know more about what went into the in-depth project.
If you’d like to purchase the book, you can find it here.
I got an A- on this project.
Purple seemed to be a natural color to use in this project, considering that Esther’s story was that of royalty. I wanted the cover to look both scholarly and attractive, with historical elements promising to appear within the text just as it has on the front. The map above focuses on the geographical area that the story of Esther took place, and the ruins below depict one of the palaces belonging to Darius the Great (keep reading if you’re wondering why he has anything to do with Esther).
Probably one of the most fascinating discoveries during this project was learning the identity of King Ahasuerus. Contrary to popular history, it couldn’t have been Artaxerxes or Xerxes who ruled during the story of Esther–not if we treat the Bible as our supreme authority. James Ussher also believes popular history to be in error, and that it’s actually Darius the Great. Because this claim is on what my entire commentary hangs, I chose to highlight 522 BC as an anchor point in my Esther timeline.
Each chapter began with the King James Version of the Esther story, broken up in paragraph form with the verse numbers in-tact. On the left I often chose to feature the primary character of that chapter as a historical profile, supplemented with excerpts from ancient historians and James Ussher. Throughout the book I added in classical artwork and depictions of the story, which are listed in the front matter of the commentary.
At times, I was able to include full passages from Josephus’ account of the story, such as Haman’s decree to kill the Jews and the counter decree believed to have been written by Esther herself in the king’s name. If I included anything coming from the hand of Darius, I chose to include his official seal as his signature and sign of approval.
At the end of every chapter, I always had a couple pages for notes. I primarily wrote this commentary for my dad, who loves diving head-first into history and biblical theology. He’s an extensive note-taker, and I thought his ideal commentary would include ample space for personal notes.
Below is my introduction I wrote at the front of the commentary, explaining my reasoning for equating Darius with Ahasueras, as well as some background information on my relationship with the book of Esther.
