Reply To: Sign Of The Times?(!)

Furthermore, Cantoresq declared, in an earlier Purim thread here, his belief in the old anti-religious screed that Purim is a made-up holiday as part of a conspiracy to eliminate Nicanor Day. Such apikorsus is beyond the pale of Orthodoxy, and someone who makes such a statement need not be judged favorably.Denying the validity of one of the 24 books of Tanach can’t be good. I doubt there is anyone else here who calls himself Orthodox but says megillas Esther is sheker. Nobody, no matter how Orthoprax , can espouse such beliefs and expect Orthodox people to judge him favorably.

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Judge me any way you want, I could care less. But just to set the record straight, I never claimed that Megillat Esther is Sheker. (This of course raises an interesting issue. Were for example, someone to question the historicity of someone named Job, would that be heresy? What about examining the historiography of the narrative in the Pentatauch? As regards Esther, is it heresy to wonder why there is no reference to Haman or Mordechai or Esther in the Persian royal records, which we have? Is it heresy to try to historically place the events recounted in the Megilla and wonder why it is confoundedly difficult to do so? What constitutes religious valid inquiry and what is heresy? But that’s for another day. Moreover, Jothar seems to erroneously conflate religious validity with historicity.) I don’t really recall the thread, but I do recall discussing Yom Nicanor and how it was subsumed by Purim, which was not observed so long as Yom Nicanor was celebrated. But I doubt ever saying anything that might suggest the abrogation of Purim.